No.1 candidate is solid with GT-R. Will it be payback time for S Road MOLA GT-R?
GT-R showed off its speed at Round 2 held on the high speed Fuji track as No.1 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R (Tsugio Matsuda / Ronnie Quintarelli) winning the race and No.12 CALSONIC IMPUL GT-R (Hironobu Yasuda / Joao Paulo de Oliveira) finishing second. Contrastingly, the performance of cars other than GT-R was prominent at the season opener held on the technical track of Okayama. The race was won by No.37 KeePer TOM'S RC F (Andrea Caldarelli / Ryo Hirakawa) with No.100 RAYBRIG NSX CONCEPT-GT (Naoki Yamamoto / Takuya Izawa) finishing at the second place.
Considering the above, RC F and NSX CONCEPT-GT may have advantage at the Thai technical circuit. However, the improvement seen in the GT-R at Fuji was so enormous that a rival engineer expressed it as "It was like a completely different car." GT-R may well be the top candidate of Thai race.
If it will be a "hot" race in Thai, then the stake will be on No.46 S Road MOLA GT-R (Satoshi Motoyama / Masataka Yanagida), which got pole position and ran impressively until the mid-stage of the race when it was forced to stop due to a problem in the car last year. Last year's second-place finisher No.24 D'station ADVAN GT-R (Daiki Sasaki / Lucas Ordonez) is also a team to watch as they have been strong at overseas races.
Team standing against them would be, without a doubt, defending winner No.36 PETRONAS TOM'S RC F (Daisuke Ito / James Rossiter). If the weather changes drastically or the race develops into a turmoil, then it would be interesting to see how the teams like No.39 DENSO KOBELCO SARD RC F (Kohei Hirate / Heikki Kovalainen) or No.19 WedsSport ADVAN RC F (Juichi Wakisaka / Yuhi Sekiguchi) will work it out through the race.
Out of the NSX CONCEPT-GT fleet, the duo driving No.100 RAYBRIG NSX CONCEPT-GT favor a technical circuit like Chang. Despite disappointment by a tire problem last year, fans can expect on No.8 ARTA NSX CONCEPT-GT (Kosuke Matsuura / Tomoki Nojiri) considering it left a good result of a fourth in qualifying. If it rains, it is very possible to see No.64 Epson NSX CONCEPT-GT (Daisuke Nakajima / Bertrand Baguette) fighting for the top position.