Super GT at Sportsland Sugo: Fourth straight victory for Lexus

Lexus continues its winning streak in the 2017 Japanese Super GT Series with fourth win in four rounds of the season. The defending Super GT champions Kohei Hirate and Heikki Kovalainen are the winners of the race at Sportsland Sugo in the #1 Denso Kobelco SARD Lexus LC500. It’s their first win of the season as four different crews claimed victories in four races.

A race, which started with three Honda NSX-GT cars in three leading positions, was marked by wet weather and slippery track. Neither one of those Hondas finished on a podium. Satoshi Motoyama and Katsumasa Chiyo, who started 15th in GT500 field with the #46 Nissan GT-R, made a fantastic progress to finish in the second place, what is their first podium of the season.

Kazuya Oshima and Andrea Caldarelli completed a podium in the #6 Lexus LC500 of the LeMans Wako’s team. It’s their third podium of the season and they are now the new championship leaders, with 41 points on their account, four more than second-placed Ryo Hirakawa and Nick Cassidy.

In the GT300 class, Katsuyuki Hiranaka and Bjorn Wirdheim won the race after started 17th on the grid in the #11 Gainer Tanax Mercedes-AMG GT3. The second-placed Akihiro Tsuzuki and Morio Nitta also made a great progress in the #50 Ferrari 488 GT3, starting from P16.

GT300 championship leaders Takamitsu Matsui and Kenta Yamashita, who started from pole in the #25 VivaC Toyota 86 MC, finished the race in the third place. They are now tied in the championship points with today’s winners Hiranaka/Wirdheim.

Four more races are scheduled for the rest of the season. The next one is the 300-km race at Fuji Speedway on August 6.

Check the full results of Super GT race at Sugo

Photos: supergt.net,