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Monday June 22, 2009

Super GT: Yasuda-Quintarelli grab first win of the season

By LIM TEIK HUAT

SEPANG: Super GT rookie Hironobu Yasuda successfully partnered Ronnie Quintarelli in a Nissan GT-R to deliver a stunning win for Hasemi Tomica Ebro in the GT500 class in the fourth round here yesterday.

It was also the first win for the team this season. They started the only overseas round of the championships with four points to show from a seventh place in the third round at the Fuji International Circuit last month.

However, Quintarelli raised the team’s hopes on Saturday when he earned the team a front row start alongside the Motul Autech team on Saturday.

It was the third straight pole start for the Motul Autech duo of Satoshi Motoyama-Benoit Treluyer but misfortune struck the Nissan-factory team when their second gear malfunctioned on the warm-up lap. Their car was stranded and had to start the 54-lap race at the back of the grid.

Hironobu Yasuda and Ronnie Quintarelli celebrate after their GT500 victory Sunday. - S.S. KANESAN / The Star

Quintarelli was the one who benefited the most and came out of the first corner unscathed. The Italian held on to the lead before passing the drive over to his Japanese partner with 23 laps remaining.

Yasuda, who is competing in his first full season in the GT500 class, pressed home to take the chequered flag.

The win yesterday saw the team climbing to fifth in the overall championship standings on 24 points.

Joao Paulo Lima de Oliveira and Seiji Ara of Advan Kondo remained the overall leaders with a fifth-place finish yesterday. Advan Kondo, who won the race here last year, earned sixth points more to bring their total to 37.

Quintarelli was confident that the team would chalk their best-ever finish of the season after they were pro­­moted to pole position.

“I pushed hard for the first few laps to build a good gap. I also conserved the tyres after that before pitting to hand over to my partner,” said the Italian.

Yasuda thanked his partner and the team crew for the good work in preparing the car.

“I just drove at a steady pace. The team instructed me that it was not necessary to push too hard as we had a good lead already,” he said.

Toshihiro Kaneishi-Kodai Tsuka­ko­shi of Keihin finished second in a Honda NSX car while the final podium spot went to Ralph Firman-Takuya Izawa from Arta.

An estimated crowd of 48,000 watched the race this year.

Results

GT500: 1. Ronnie Quintarelli-Hironobu Yasuda (Ita-Jpn) Hasemi Tomica Ebbro 1’52:02.010, 2. Toshihiro Kaneishi-Koudai Tsukakoshi (Jpn) Keihin 1’52:13.504, 3. Ralph Firman-Takuya Izawa (Irl-Jpn) Arta 1’52:18.216,

4. Yuji Ide-Shinya Hosokawa (Jpn) Raybrig 1’52:18.575, 5. Joao Paolo Lima de Oliveira-Seiji Ara (Bra-Jpn) Advan-Kondo 1’52:36.799.

GT300: 1. Hiroki Katoh-Hiroki Yoshimoto (Jpn) I.M. Jihan-Apple-Shiden 1’52:35.708, 2. Manabu Orido-Tatsuya Kataoka (Jpn) Wedsport 1’52:45.393, 3. Nobuteru Taniguchi-Ryo Orime (Jpn) M7 Mutiara Motors-Amemiya 1’52:28.772, 4. Kazuki Hoshino-Masataka Yanagida (Jpn) S Road-Mola Z 1’53:38.981, 5. Koji Yamanishi-Atsushi Yogo (Jpn) Triple A-Murcie 1’54:04.899.

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