Nissan squad Kondo Racing had a strong chance of a first SuperGT win since 2016 at Autopolis, but 'not trusting the tyres' was key to the team's undoing:
Kondo ended a five-year pole drought on Saturday at the Kyushu circuit as Daiki Sasaki pulled out a surprise pole lap, but come race day Sasaki and teammate Kohei Hirate had to be content with third place behind the Real Racing and Team Kunimitsu Hondas.
Hirate rejoined in third behind the Kunimitsu NSX-GT of Naoki Yamamoto, and put the two-time GT500 champion under major pressure in the latter stages of the race, but fell just shy of the runner-up spot. "It would have been better to pit together [at the same time as the Hondas] but we didn’t trust the tyres," Murata told Motorsport.com's Japanese edition.
"But in reality the GT300 pack moved quite a bit, and the #100 and the #17 had clear track, which we didn’t expect. T"Once we saw that loss, we called [Sasaki] in to box, but somehow the radio communication didn’t work and he didn’t come in immediately."
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