Honda leads the way on first day of official SUPER GT testing

Fukuzumi set what proved to be the day's benchmark time of 1m17.827s just under halfway through the two-hour morning session at the wheel of the #16 Honda NSX-GT he shares with new team-mate Hiroki Otsu.

That was around 1.6 seconds slower than the best time set in manufacturer testing at Okayama in early February, but with the important caveat of this being the first test of the year in which the use of carbon-neutral fuel is mandatory.

Unseasonably warm weather is also likely to have contributed to the slower laptimes compared to the February test.

Fukuzumi led a one-two for Honda, a mere 0.036s up on the #100 Team Kunimitsu car driven by Naoki Yamamoto.

Behind the two leading Hondas, the #36 TOM'S Toyota of Sho Tsuboi was next up, within two tenths of the pace, while Tomoki Nojiri made it three NSX-GTs in the top four in the #8 ARTA car.

The four Nissan Zs occupied places five through eight, the quickest of the quartet being the #1 Impul car (Kazuki Hiramine) followed by the Yokohama tyre-shod Kondo Racing machine (Daiki Sasaki).

NISMO's pair of works entries running on Michelin tyres were seventh and eighth, driven by Ronnie Quintarelli and Katsumasa Chiyo respectively.

Toyota's remaining runners struggled for pace, filling out the final five places, led by the Rookie Racing GR Supra which is being driven single-handedly this weekend by Kazuya Oshima.

Rising temperatures in the two-hour afternoon session meant there were no improvements compared to the morning in the GT500 class.

Fukuzumi once again set the pace in this session with a 1m18.421s at the very end of the day, during the 10 minutes of running reserved for the top class. Toshiki Oyu made it a 1-2 for ARTA, 0.180s slower in the #8 car, while Mitsunori Takaboshi was third in the #3 Nissan.

In the GT300 class, it was the JLOC Lamborghini squad that set the pace as Takashi Kogure set the benchmark time of 1m25.400s in the #88 Huracan GT3 Evo during the morning session.

#88 JLOC Lamborghini GT3 (Photo by: Masahide Kamio)

Ex-Formula 1 driver Roberto Merhi was second-fastest in the Team LeMans Audi R8 LMS GT3, with team-mate Yoshiaki Katayama going almost as quick, while veteran Morio Nitta was third-fastest in the K-tunes Racing Lexus RC F GT3.

apr's brand-new hybrid-powered Lexus LC500h GT got off to a solid start with the sixth-fastest time in the hands of Kazuto Kotaka.

Fastest in the afternoon session was the Max Racing Toyota GR Supra GT of Atsushi Miyake with a 1m26.199s.

The only red flag of the day came late in the morning session when the #5 Team Mach Toyota 86 Mother Chassis came to a stop on the outside of Turn 3.

Subaru's revamped BRZ also suffered problems in the afternoon as it came to a stop in the pit entrance, but the session remained green.

Testing continues on Sunday with two more two-hour sessions planned.

Okayama SUPER GT testing times (GT500 class):

Pos.	No.	Team/Car	Drivers	Morning	Afternoon
1	16	ARTA/Honda	Nirei Fukuzumi  Hiroki Otsu	1'17.827	1'18.421
2	100	Kunimitsu/Honda	Naoki Yamamoto  Tadasuke Makino	1'17.863	1'18.704
3	36	TOM'S/Toyota	Sho Tsuboi  Ritomo Miyata	1'18.007	1'19.208
4	8	ARTA/Honda	Tomoki Nojiri  Toshiki Oyu	1'18.066	1'18.601
5	1	Impul/Nissan	Bertrand Baguette  Kazuki Hiramine	1'18.276	1'18.896
6	24	Kondo Racing/Nissan	Daiki Sasaki  Kohei Hirate	1'18.312	1'18.861
7	23	NISMO/Nissan	Ronnie Quintarelli  Tsugio Matsuda	1'18.562	1'19.208
8	3	NDDP Racing/Nissan	Katsumasa Chiyo  Mitsunori Takaboshi	1'18.581	1'18.685
9	64	Nakajima Racing/Honda	Takuya Izawa	1'18.590	1'19.189
10	17	Real Racing/Honda	Koudai Tsukakoshi  Nobuharu Matsushita	1'18.594	1'18.966
11	14	Rookie Racing/Toyota	Kazuya Oshima	1'18.655	1'19.192
12	39	SARD/Toyota	Yuhi Sekiguchi  Yuichi Nakayama	1'18.819	1'19.080
13	19	Racing Project Bandoh/Toyota	Yuji Kunimoto  Sena Sakaguchi	1'18.941	1'19.288
14	37	TOM'S/Toyota	Giuliano Alesi  Ukyo Sasahara	1'19.001	1'19.238
15	38	Cerumo/Toyota	Yuji Tachikawa  Hiroaki Ishiura	1'19.257	1'20.234