It’s only been a few days since we took our first victory of the season in Japan, and already we’re back in the Land of the Rising Sun for the final round of the 2012 Super Taikyu Endurance Series at Autopolis.
In ‘kiwi speak’, this place is ‘out in the wops’ – a 2.5 hour domestic flight from Tokyo to Kyushu island, and another two hours by car into the mountains to the cold, secluded Autopolis circuit.
Throughout testing on Friday and qualifying today, we’ve been watching the skies awaiting the imminent rain that is forecast to arrive before the 3 hour race begins tomorrow afternoon.
So far, however, it’s remained dry. Testing was difficult; this place is a lot harder for the super-long SLS than the flowing Suzuka, and it took until this morning’s pre-qualifying warm up to feel happy with the car.
The first qualifying saw a 4-way battle between our two PETRONAS SLS AMGs, the Kondo Nissan GTR and the new arrival of a Super GT GT300 Ferrari 458.
At the end of Q1, we sat just 0.023s ahead of the field, leaving the job down to me to secure pole position in Q2. Taking a few brave pills and hooking up a solid lap gave us our third pole position of the season, and more importantly gives us clear vision at the head of the field if the rain greets us tomorrow morning.
I want nothing more than to sign off my Japanese debut season with another win, so we will be pushing 110% tomorrow!
Cheers,
Jono
Jono Lester is supported by CRC motornews.co.nz. Follow his racing on Facebook and Twitter.
