ENDLESS·ADVAN·380RS-C TAKES SERIES TITLE

AUTOPOLIS (Oita prefecture), Japan (November 12, 2012) – The sixth and final round of the Super Taikyu Series (S-Tai) was held here, with the #3 ENDLESS ADVAN 380RS-C (Kyosuke Mineo/Yukinori Taniguchi/Shinichi Takagi) taking the ST-1 class victory and securing the series' title.

This was the first Super Taikyu Series event to be held at Autopolis, but on race day, foggy and rainy conditions persisted from early morning, leading to the cancellation of the morning's warm-up session. The race was reduced to two hours, and started with the Safety Car (SC) on track, leading the cars round. When fog developed during the race, the Safety Car made a second appearance. Later, as conditions worsened with 30 minutes remaining, red flags were displayed signaling an end to the race.

The #3 Z secured pole position in the previous day's qualifying session. The points earned from taking pole gave them 1st place in the series points' rankings, and in the race, the flawless driving by first driver Mineo and then by Takagi, who took the wheel for the latter half, allowed them to protect their top spot.

In the ST-3 class, the #34 asset Techno Z34 (Masahiro Sasaki/Shuji Maejima) stayed in contention for the championship title, and managed to hold the top position in their class for a while, but the timing of the reappearance of the Safety Car and their routine pit work clashed, putting them behind for an eventual third-place finish. Regrettably they missed their chance at the title. Meanwhile, the #15 Okabe Jidosha DIXCEL Team Tetsuya Z34 (Masaaki Nagashima/ Toru Tanaka/Tetsuya Tanaka) took second place on the victory stand after a sixth place result in qualifying, with Fairlady Zs occupying two steps on the podium.

In the GT3 Class, the #24 Threebond Nissan Automobile Technical College GT-R (Tomonobu Fujii/GAMISAN/Michael Kim) recorded the top time during the practice session, promising a fine showing going into the race. However, there was trouble with their car, and they had to start from the back. In the race they clawed their way to the top of the class, until the timing of the end of their second pit stop coincided with the end of the race due to red flags being shown. In the end they took third place on the podium.

Driver Tomonobu Fujii reflected on the team's performance over the season: "The car was in excellent condition during practice, so the results are very unfortunate. Still, as a team, over the course of this first year of the project, we have been able to experience winning with a first-year car, so I think it has been a good year. I feel this project has been very meaningful and a huge asset to the students as well. This race week saw a lot of irregularities in both qualifying and the race, but I was surprised by how the number of students coming to work on the car hands-on has increased. Their desire feeds our motivation, and makes us feel like we are participating in a very worthwhile project."

Kyosuke Mineo (ST-1 Class: Race Winner)
"We reached the top of the rankings by taking pole position in qualifying, but I came to fully understand that hunters are more aggressive than the hunted, since they have nothing to lose. Our opponents finished the pit work in their first stop in earlier, so we decided on a ploy to do our two pit stops on consecutive laps; though by the time we got back on track our lead was tiny, so it really was a razor-thin victory. During the season there were times when we weren't improving our results, but our team did a lot of testing, and the condition of the car improved incredibly. Thanks to that, we were able to win the championship like this, and it really makes it feel like all that hard work was worth it."

• <Super Taikyu Series Round 6 GT3 Class>
• <Super Taikyu Series Round 6 ST-1 Class>
• <Super Taikyu Series Round 6 ST-3 Class>

<Related Link>
NISSAN MOTORSPORTS Web Site

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