Qualifying Qualifying was held on August 17, 2013, with the first of the sessions for the GT300 cars. Tetsuya Yamano was the fastest GT300 driver in the first session, breaking the track record with a 2:01.481, a record set by Yamano's teammate
Kota Sasaki in the practice session earlier that day. The teams ranked 1st, 3rd, 5th and 6th in the GT300 championship prior to Suzuka weren't fast enough to qualify for the second session. The #87 JLOC
Lamborghini Gallardo GT3 with
Hiroki Yoshimoto driving had technical trouble and only ran one lap and was off the pace. In the first GT500 class session
Frédéric Makowiecki set the fastest laptime in the first session, who set the fastest time on his last lap of the session, beating the #6 Lexus Team LeMans ENEOS being driven by
Yuji Kunimoto. In the second GT300 qualifying session for the thirteen fastest cars in the first qualifying session,
Kota Sasaki wasn't able to beat his teammate's Q1 time but was still able to get their fourth pole position of the 2013 season with a 2:01.693, 0.782 seconds faster than Daiki Sasaki in the #3 NDDP Racing
Nissan GT-R GT3. The #50 Arnage Racing
Aston Martin V12 Vantage GT3 that won the 2012 race and finished second in the GT300 championship qualified third fastest with Hideto Yasuoka driving. In the final session, for the eight fastest GT500 cars,
Ronnie Quintarelli in the #23
NISMO Nissan GT-R did a 1:52.157 early on in the session, which was fast enough for pole position. The #18 Weider
Dome Racing Honda HSV-010 GT that was fastest in Q1 with Makowiecki driving was second fastest in Q2 with
Naoki Yamamoto driving.
Race The race was held on August 18, 2013. The race started at 12:35pm and all cars racing made clean starts, with Quintarelli and Sasaki leading the race from their respective pole positions.
Kazuki Nakajima managed to overtake Yamamoto for 2nd place on the opening lap, but as the leaders caught up to the slower GT300 cars Yamamoto re-passed Nakajima for 2nd. On lap 20 after GT300 cars slowed Quintarelli and Yamamoto managed to overtake him for the overall race lead. The #61 Subaru BRZ led from pole position and was able to consistently lap faster than the field, after one-third race distance Sasaki and
Takuto Iguchi who drove the 2nd stint in the car was 90 seconds ahead of the #4
GSR Hatsune Miku BMW. However, as the overall leaders were on their 66th lap, the #86 JLOC
Lamborghini Gallardo GT3 with
Shinya Hosokawa driving blew a tyre and from the resulting damage there was a small fire on the Lamborghini. The safety car was deployed and many teams elected to make their second of four compulsory pitstops. The #1 MOLA GT-R, #24 Kondo Racing GT-R and the #38 Cerumo SC430 along with many GT300 competitors (the #2 McLaren, the #3 GT-R, the #5 GT-R, the #9 Porsche, and the #87 Lamborghini) were all judged to be in violation of the safety car regulations and all were given 90 second stop-go penalties. Following the #1 car serving its penalty and due to the timing of the safety car Ronnie Quintarelli in the #23
NISMO Nissan GT-R was back into the lead of the GT500 class while the #61 R&D Sport
Subaru BRZ was still leading GT300, now with Tetsuya Yamano driving.
Masataka Yanagida had a close call after colliding with a slower GT300 car on his outlap in the #23 GT-R, but the incident allowed
Frédéric Makowiecki to close in. Makowiecki ended up passing Yanagida for the lead on lap 116. Further behind in the GT500 class
Seiji Ara had brought the #19 SC430 from 12th on the grid to 4th place and in a battle with
Tsugio Matsuda for 3rd place. However Ara ran wide after trying to pass a GT300 car and dropped to 6th place, behind both the
TOM's cars. The #61 R&D Sport
Subaru BRZ was again leading GT300 by a large margin but with around 30 laps left in the race the rear diffuser on the car was damaged from an earlier incident and had now caused aerodynamic issues as well as damage to the right-rear tyre from bodywork rubbing on it. Sasaki slowed his pace down and
Nobuteru Taniguchi in 2nd and
Naoya Gamou in 3rd both improved their laptimes to try to catch Sasaki before the end of the race. Sasaki ended up pitting the car and the team worked on the car fast enough for Sasaki to rejoin just behind Taniguchi who inherited the lead. With fresher rear tyres and more fuel on board Sasaki was able to push again and with 14 laps left overtook Taniguchi for the race lead, and held him off to win the GT300 class, the first win for the
Subaru BRZ in Super GT. In the GT500 class, both the leading #18 HSV-010 and the #23 GT-R made their last pitstop at the end of lap 139. Yamamoto took over the wheel of the #18 and managed to stay in front of Quintarelli in the pitstops, and over the course of the final stint was able to hold him off for the GT500 race win, and the first time both Yamamoto and Makowiecki won in Super GT. the #36 Lexus Team
Petronas TOM'S entry of Kazuki Nakajima and
James Rossiter finished in 3rd place after
João Paulo de Oliveira ran off course with 3 laps to go and dropped the #12 Calsonic Team
Impul Nissan GT-R to 4th. The #4
GSR Hatsune Miku BMW that finished 2nd in the GT300 class was later disqualified after it failed post-race inspections. The #52 OKINAWA-IMP RACING with SHIFT
Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 inherited 2nd place and the #62 Leon Racing
Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 was given 3rd place. 32 of the 38 starters managed to complete enough laps to be classified in the final race result. ==Results==