For the third time this season, the Italian-Japanese driver Cozzolino was accompanied in the cockpit of Pacific’s # 9 488 GT3 Evo by former GT300 champion Naoki Yokomizo, while his regular teammate Takeshi Kimura was on the road at the FIA World Endurance Championship in Bahrain was.
The weekend started well with Cozzolino leading practice, but Yokomizo failed in the first part of qualifying, leaving the pair behind from 21st on the grid in the GT300 class.
Cozzolino started and quickly fought his way through the order, had advanced to seventh place in class at the beginning of the pit stop phase and even led a phase before a late pit stop.
Yokomizo was on track to bring the only Ferrari in the SUPER GT field home for at least a top six finish before the team’s race ended with a punctured rear left tire.
“The car was fantastic this weekend, it was the first time in my career that I had a perfect racing car,” Cozzolino told Motorsport.com. “Yokohama brought a different tire structure for this race, which was really good, and compared to the other GT3 cars, the Ferrari is very gentle on the tires.
“[Yokomizo] has done really well in the last two races and so I was confident that he would overtake Q1 even if he made a few mistakes on his flying lap because the car worked so well.
“I think the problem is that he was too careful warming up his tires and didn’t bring the tires up to temperature on the first attack lap. He improved on the second attack, he was 0.4 seconds ahead, but then he is Got stuck in a traffic jam, everything went to hell.
“In the race we decided that I would start because I was very confident that I would be able to overtake a lot of cars. The car flew … it felt like I was in a GT500 car. After all, I think I overtook 14 cars, it was one of the best overtaking shows of my career. It was ridiculous!
“The engine didn’t start during the pit stop, so we lost six or seven seconds. We were P7 at this point, but if the engine had started normally we could have been P4. Naoki overtook him [#25 Hoppy] Porsche and we were on P6, right behind the third, fourth and fifth placed cars, and suddenly the left rear tire opened.
“There was no advance warning that the tire would explode. We have to analyze what exactly happened, maybe Naoki ran over some rubble or something. That’s a shame.”
# 9 PACIFIC NAC CARGUY Ferrari
Photo by: Masahide Kamio
With Kimura returning to the Pacific CarGuy team for the Fuji Speedway Finals this month, and with the 488 GT3 traditionally not among the fastest cars in a straight line, Cozzolino doubts the team will be able to deliver a similarly strong performance provide.
“If we can qualify in the top five or six then we have a chance to be up there,” he said. “But if you qualify in P16, P17 at Fuji, even if you are faster in sector two, sector three, you will lose all the time on the straights. That is our weak point.
“If we can be up there with the GT-Rs and the Supras and have their slipstream, we have a chance, but if you’re stuck in the middle to lower rankings it’s next to impossible to make progress.
“Kimura-san will be back, hopefully he can qualify well. The car is a lot better now than it was in Fuji for lap 2 and the tires are a lot better so we’ll see how it goes.”
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