SUPER GT: The Suzuka “penalty saga” explained

On Monday, the GTA officially confirmed the revised GT500 results of the third round of the 2023 SUPER GT championship at Suzuka – eight days after the race’s conclusion. The reason: A penalty following a mass protest against the provisionally winning team and the long appeal process. A look back at the Suzuka “penalty saga”, what exactly happened, why it took so long and the lessons for the future.

It’s safe to say that the last race before SUPER GT’s summer break at the beginning of June at Suzuka didn’t go as anyone has anticipated. When the fans left the Grand Prix venue on Sunday evening, they did so with conflicted feelings, but also with relief. Conflicted, because many knew that the winning drivers standing on the GT500 podium might likely not keep their victory. Relieve, because two drivers survived one of the most horrific accident the series has seen in recent years.

Excluding the competitive side of things: The most important news is that both Tsugio Matsuda (#23 Motul Autech Z) and Kosuke Matsuura (#87 Bamboo Airways Lamborghini GT3) are OK!

Photo: JLOC

What happened? On lap 59 of 77, Tsugio Matsuda tried to overtake both the #30 apr GR86 GT as well as the before mentioned #87 Bamboo Airways Lamborghini GT3 of the GT300 class on the inside after coming out of the fast 130R. While being three-wide, Matsuda moved over to the right a bit too early before the braking zone leading into the Hitachi Astemo Chicane, touching the front of the yellow Toyota with his rear and collecting the Lamborghini. While Matsuura crashed hard into the outer barrier, Matsuda’s Nissan Z GT500 went airborne and flew rear first into the catch fence and tyre barriers, resulting in a violent crash of the two cars. Kosuke Matsuura escaped the wreck of his Lamborghini Huracán GT3 without any injuries. In an interview with the Japanese publication auto sport Web, the former IndyCar driver confirmed that his body only felt a bit sour, but compared to the crashes he experienced in the American open wheel series, it didn’t hurt as much. Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said for his car. What Matsuura already feared hours after the race, was confirmed by Yuya Motojima, who’s piloting the #88 sister car, a day later when visiting the JLOC facilities: the #87 Bamboo Airways Lamborghini GT3 is a total loss. But while JLOC has already started the restoring process for the upcoming race at Fuji Speedway on August 5-6, it leaves the question if this one will already involve the EVO2 version of the Huracán GT3, which debuted earlier this year at the iconic Rolex 24 in Daytona. Statements before the season suggested that JLOC could get at least one of the EVO2 cars during the summer.

While Matsuura was able to escape the crash on his own, Tsugio Matsuda had to get rescued by the FRO (First Rescue Operation) crew – SUPER GT’s emergency and rescue crew, which is made up of emergency medical specialist, a well-trained rescue worker as well as a fire warden. Thankfully, the series could quickly confirm Matsuda’s safety, who was conscious and could move his body during the rescue operation. A first relief, considering that barely anything was left of the car (as it’s supposed to do, so that the driver is not eating the entire force of the impact) but the roll cage to protect the driver. The two-time GT500 champion was immediately transported by helicopter to a local hospital for further examination. A few hours after the race, NISMO confirmed that Tsugio Matsuda thankfully didn’t suffer any major injuries, but would stay in the hospital a bit longer for further examination. Ronnie Quintarelli was also able to give an all-clear signal after visiting his teammate and talking with him. A few days later, Matsuda apologized on social media to his fans for making them worry, announcing that he left intensive care and will now start the recovering process to be back in the car as early as the next race at Fuji Speedway in August.

The race was ultimately red flagged and not restarted, as the extensive damage to the barriers and especially the catch fence would’ve taken too long to repair. Since 75% of the race distance were completed, full points were awarded. However, it took the stewards of the meeting a long time to declare the provisional winners of the race, as discussions about the results between the competition committee and the team directors prolonged. No issues were found in GT300: Repeating last year’s victory, the #4 Studie BMW M4 (Seiji Ara / Masataka Yanagida) took its first win of the season after an unorthodox strategy by pitting within the first three laps for a quick splash and dash to get out of traffic, followed by the #2 muta Racing GR86 GT (Yuui Tsutsumi / Hibiki Taira / Hiroki Katoh) and the #52 Saitamatoyopet GreenBrave GR Supra GT (Hiroki Yoshida / Kohta Kawaai), who were on the same strategy.

As the podium ceremony couldn’t be delayed any further, the #3 Niterra Motul Z (Katsumasa Chiyo / Mitsunori Takaboshi) was declared as the provisional winner in GT500, despite only having refueled once (the compulsory rule demanded two refueling pit stops) and was only leading the race by the virtue of being the only team yet to pit a second time at the time of the stoppage. While the subdued podium ceremony took place, a mass protest by no less than ten GT500 teams was formed against the provisional winners – only ARTA, fellow Nissan partners Kondo Racing and of course NISMO abstained from doing the same. As team director of the #37 Deloitte TOM’S GR Supra, Jun Yamada, explained towards auto sport Web, none of the directors have an issue with the #3 team, but against the manner how they won. Usually, the competition judging committee makes a decision by their own. But with so many voices and questions raised during the team director’s meeting shortly after the red flag, they went with the running order at the time of stoppage for the provisional GT500 results.

Team Impul’s factory manager Shinichiro Takahashi referred to a statement made by GTA chairman Masaaki Bandoh and race director Naoki Hattori, who explained almost exactly a year ago at a press conference at Suzuka that if 75% of the distance have been completed, a penalty would be imposed on the teams who haven’t fulfilled their refueling obligations. He added that it is inevitable that a race might get stopped with the red flag and as competitors they take the risk of receiving a penalty when delaying the second pit stop until late in the race.

A similar case was raised last year, when the Golden Week race at Fuji Speedway had to end with the red flag following Mitsunori Takaboshi’s violent accident on the main straight. At the time of stoppage, all teams only completed one of the required two refueling stops, but with less than 75% of the distance completed and only half points awarded, no penalties were given. The statement by Masaaki Bandoh and Naoki Hattori followed at the next round. The only problem: No exact penalty rule was written down in the sporting regulations, an issue heavily lamented by Jun Yamada. He explained that since no exact penalty was decided in advance, they had to go with running order at the time of the red flag. However, since last year’s Fuji round, the teams have been asking themselves what would happen, if such an unprecedented situation like the one just now at Suzuka would occur. “The fact that this decision was made in such an ambiguous manner is a bit unforgiveable”, Yamada told auto sport Web. Even after the mass protest was filed, Yamada was seen exchanging opinions with his fellow team directors as well as various other parties. While Bridgestone, who are supplying tyres to the ten teams that did file a protest, can’t appeal against the decision themselves, representatives were seen talking with each of the entrants. According to auto sport Web, the staff in charge was heard saying “If the results are allowed to stand, it’ll no longer be a purely competitive event.”

They weren’t the only ones with such a strong opinion. Three-time GT500 champion and #39 Denso Kobelco SARD GR Supra team director Juichi Wakisaka played the “think about the children” card, by asking a philosophical question about the meaning of duty while also emphasizing the role model SUPER GT has to play: “What does a breach of duty mean? SUPER GT has a tremendous number of fans and children who support us, so how would we explain to them that a car that hasn’t fulfilled its duty won the race?” A quite drastic, but not entirely wrong way to put it. But despite his strong words, Wakisaki made sure to actually talk with the judging committee, saying that they all were thankful for the valuable input by everyone. After all, such unprecedented situations are part of the process to continue to improve SUPER GT and the sport itself – a part that is not always immediately visible for the fans.

At 20:40 local time, the GTA posted the revised provisional results. The #3 Niterra Motul Z had been hit with a 60-second time penalty, the roughly equivalent of one pit stop plus a penalty, dropping Katsumasa Chiyo / Mitsunori Takaboshi down to P4. The #19 WedsSport Advan GR Supra (Yuji Kunimoto / Sena Sakaguchi) was declared as the new provisional winner of the race, followed by the #36 au TOM’S GR Supra (Sho Tsuboi / Ritomo Miyata) and the #1 Marelli Impul Z (Kazuki Hiramine / Bertrand Baguette). NISMO, on the other hand, immediately filed a protest against the penalty, which the competition judging committee accepted, but ultimately dismissed about an hour later. As it was within their rights, NISMO followed this up with a written intent to potentially appeal against this decision at 22:25 local time and thus delaying the declaration of the official results.

It took until last Monday, eight days after the conclusion of the Suzuka round, for the official results to be announcced, following NISMO’s decision to withdraw their intention to appeal. In an official statement posted on the Nissan NISMO website, director of the Niterra Motul Z, Jiro Shimada, explained the reasoning behind their decision:

“We filed a protest because we had doubts about the ruling of a penalty based on a rule that was not clearly stated in the regulations, but our protest was rejected. We thought that we should express our wish that the basic principle of ‘competitions should be judged in accordance with the rules’ should be observed. Subsequently, after re-conferring with the competition officials, they promised to clarify the rules in the future, so we decided not to proceed with a formal appeal.“

And thus, the “Penalty Saga of Suzuka” came to an end. An unprecedented situation that of course raised many questions, but at the same time will act as a learning process to ultimately improve the competition in SUPER GT. Could the situation have been dealt with differently? After all, as Impul’s Shinichro Takahashi pointed out, the issue with the penalty not been correctly stated in the sporting regulations was somewhat of a home-made problem. Otherwise, the competition committee could’ve penalized the #3 crew without the protest by the other teams, similar as to how the 2019 season opener at Okayama ended. Because of the bad weather, the race got red flagged and only half points were awarded. However, the at the time of stoppage leading #17 Real Racing Honda NSX-GT received a penalty for avoidable contact, after Koudai Tsukakoshi missed his braking point in the wet and pushed Naoki Yamamoto into the gravel pit. The decision was made before the podium ceremony and the #8 ARTA NSX-GT inherited the victory.

Surely, NISMO would’ve protested against the decision no matter what, but the whole process could’ve potentially been sped up. Perhaps the results could’ve even been made official on the same evening, Naturally, it wasn’t a simple omission by the GTA to not clearly state the penalty Masaaki Bandoh and Naoki Hattori mentioned last year for not refueling twice. It rather seems that SUPER GT’s governing body left it ambiguous on purpose to decide on a case-by-case basis rather than running into a situation similar to last year’s Fuji Golden Week race, to avoid having to potentially penalize the entire field. Such vagueness is found in other rules too, for example how red flags are handled in qualifying. If the qualifying is interrupted via the red flag, the extension or reduction of the remaining time will be decided by the stewards of the meeting. For example, they could decide to add a few more minutes, but could also declare the session as finished. Such situations will be decided case by case. And indeed, such a situation occured at the Okayama season opener back in April, when Q1A of the GT300 qualifying had to get red flagged with a little over five minutes left on the clock due to heavy rain and wasn’t resumed. The only clarity: No protests regarding this decision will be accepted.

GTA chairman Masaaki Bandoh will most definitely talk about this whole odyssey after the summer break at Fuji Speedway. After all, with SUPER GT always putting the fans first, it seems doubtful that anyone is happy that the official GT500 results took eight days to be confirmed. It’s been confirmed that the regulations will be adjusted, to make them clearer and more transparent. And that is, next to the safety of both Tsugio Matsuda and Kosuke Matsuura, the most important part coming out of the Suzuka weekend. Because no matter the decision, what’s important is that there’s a clear and consistent line – something that other championships such as Formula 1 have been struggling with in the most recent years.

Another talking point that Naoki Hattori already mentioned is if any changes could perhaps be made to the 130R as well as the part leading up the Hitachi Astemo Chicane to increase the safety. It was the second time Suzuka saw such a violent accident this year following a similar crash at almost the exact same spot at the Super Taikyu season opener back in March, involving former three-time GT300 champion Tetsuya Yamano in a Mazda Roadster, who escaped his crash with a concussion, broken ribs and bruises – something he described as “minor injuries”. In addition, there were two separate testing accidents, which forced Kenta Yamashita (#14 ENEOS X PRIME GR Supra) and Kakunoshin Ohta (#64 Modulo NSX-GT) to miss some of their respective pre-season activities.

If the race would’ve ended normally, the GT500 victory would’ve most likely gone to the #19 WedsSport Advan GR Supra anyway. A testament to the improvements the team, especially with their Yokohama tyres, have made over the last years. They were already quick in qualifying with four pole positions last season alone. Now they finally grabbed that elusive race win – only the second for the team and Yuji Kunimoto following their emotional maiden victory in Thailand in 2016 as well as the first ever GT500 win for Sena Sakaguchi. The seven-year long wait was just as long for tyre partner Yokohama. The last time they saw one of their teams on top of the rostrum was at the penultimate round of the 2016 season at Motegi, courtesy of Kondo Racing.