Ford has secured its maiden Suzuka 1000km and Intercontinental GT Challenge pole positions ahead of Sunday’s 50th Summer Endurance Race after a grid penalty cost Craft-Bamboo top spot.
Miedecke/MPC’s Chris Mies, Dennis Olsen and Frederic Vervisch were consistently quick enough across the three 15-minute qualifying sessions to inherit P1 from IGTC title contenders Maxime Martin and Luca Stolz plus Kakunoshin Ohta whose Night Practice red flag indiscretion had restricted the #77 Mercedes-AMG to fourth at best. Damage limitation appeared to be complete before their lap times were subsequently removed for the car being underweight.
But theirs wasn’t the only entry to lose places post-qualifying when a further eight cars were docked positions for a variety of offences.
Three Kiwi drivers are competing this weekend with IndyCar driver Scott McLaughlin (main photo) teaming up with Alexander Sims and Nicky Catsburg in the Johor Motorsports Racing Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3. They qualified ninth overall and seventh in the PRO Class.
Brendon Leitch is co-driver with Song Jiajun and Liu Kaishun in the Harmony Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 EVO and start 16th overall and eighth in the Bronze Class.
Daniel Gaunt is in the Tsunami RT Porsche 911 GT3 R with Johannes Zelger and Fabio Babini. They start 26th overall and fourth in the ProAm Class.
The fully revised grid will be issued on Sunday morning before the 6.5-hour race begins at 12:50 JST (GMT +9). SRO’s GT World YouTube channel has live and restriction-free coverage, while Japanese fans can also watch with native commentary on the same platform and J Sports.
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