Last weekend’s fourth Super GT round of 2011 at Sugo, in the Miyagi district which was badly affected by Japan’s recent earthquake and subsequent nuclear disaster, was understandably of particular significance to the championship and Benoît Tréluyer whose race was marred by tyre issues.
Sugo, situated near the quake-affected city of Sendai, is a symbol of Japan’s never-say-die attitude. And although scars of the disaster remain, the rigours of every-day life appeared to be returning to the area. “A lot of work has been done,” noted Benoît. “There’s been a lot of restoration and it is great to see that people’s spirits are high.”
It would be necessary to follow that example at the beginning of the weekend when atrocious weather soaked the Miyagi area. They were conditions the Motul-Autech team had not anticipated. “We were expecting higher temperatures and as you have to choose the tyre compounds one month in advance we found ourselves off the pace,” Benoît confirmed. “Things improved during the race but at the end of my stint we were experiencing a lot of tyre pick-up. I couldn’t generate enough heat to make the tyre pressures work so informed the pitwall before my stop, who made the correction for my team-mate, but there was no improvement. We were not in the right temperature window.”
At the end of June it was difficult to predict that unexpected rain and subsequently reduced temperatures would see those Bridgestone-shod teams suffer much more than the Yanagida-Quintarelli Nissan GT-R running Michelin tyres.
“It was a bit of an experimental race for the tyres. While we knew it would be hard, we also wanted to test a few things before the next race at Suzuka. On top of that, if I am honest, we got a bit mixed up with the qualifying strategies. It rained a lot and was wet each evening. That also caused us major problems because of new base set-ups successfully validated at Suzuka recently. Unfortunately we had to use untried settings during the 10 minute qualifying sessions having not had time to run them before. Things went a bit better in the race even though we had hoped for more rain after warm-up suggested we would be competitive in the wet. In my first stint I fought back from 13th on the grid to sixth despite, like the other Bridgestone runners, being at odds with my tyres. But when I handed the car over to Satoshi there was a problem during the tyre change which lost us four seconds. To make matters worse he then got blocked in the pitlane, which is very narrow at Sugo, behind a stationary GT300 car, meaning he rejoined the race last.”
Although Motoyama was able to climb back up the order, he was still facing the same problem as Benoît: low tyre pressures which allowed the car to slide.
“We finished in 12th position and didn’t score any points,” said the Frenchman. “We are now third in the championship, but quite far off the leading Nissan which has 41 points, whilst we only have 26. Between us is the Kaneishi/Tsukatoshi Honda but that’s not what worries me the most. My biggest concern is the Michelin tyres!”
Despite feeling anxious, Benoît was keen to underline his enthusiasm for the upcoming rounds. “The championship is going to be tight. We will change the engine for the next race – we can use three over the season – which will come as a real relief as we have not been entirely happy with the current one since the start. Last week’s test at Suzuka went really well. We are quite optimistic for the rest of the season!”
Come August 21 at Suzuka, the pressure will be on Benoît and Satoshi’s rivals.
Source : Benoît Treluyer