Koyama: Back-to-Back Podiums Show GT300 “Progress”
Photo: Toyota
Miki Koyama believes that back-to-back podiums in the opening rounds of the SUPER GT season demonstrates the “progress” she has made as part of the apr Lexus squad.
Toyota junior driver Koyama, sharing the No. 31 Lexus LC500h GT with Kazuto Kotaka, finished third in last month’s Okayama curtain-raiser and backed that up with the same result in last week’s three-hour Golden Week fixture at Fuji Speedway, where she and Koyama were joined in the cockpit by rookie Charlie Wurz.
In the process, she became SUPER GT’s first female driver to score multiple top-three finishes, beating one-time podium finishers June Okanoya and Lilou Wadoux.
The strong start to the season for the apr team contrasts to 2025, when Koyama struggled alongside Oliver Rasmussen, failing to score a top-ten finish all year.
While Koyama described her run to third in Okayama as “frustrating” owing to the fact she couldn’t clear the Inging Toyota GR86 GT during her stint, she was much happier with her performance at Fuji, where she spent nine laps in the lead before her pit stop.
“In qualifying I think I could have done a bit more in Q1, but there was no way we could match Subaru,” Koyama told Sportscar365. “P2 felt like where we should be.
“In the race, I took the start and I was taking a lot of margin, driving with the tires in mind. The car in front [Subaru] had some bad luck so I was able to take the lead, but of course I would have rather taken the lead by overtaking myself.
“The pace was good and I didn’t make any unnecessary moves to defend, so I think it was a good stint. The lap I was pitting was already decided. JP [de Oliveira] had good pace and caught me, and I could have blocked him, but there was no point in losing time.
“When we changed drivers to Kotaka, there was a mistake in the pit stop. The pit time was really long and I think the gap to second [six seconds] was about the same as the time we lost there. The team was very apologetic about it.
“Without that I think we would have been P2. Then again, Subaru was unlucky, No. 666 [Seven x Seven Racing] had a penalty, so we were also lucky.
“Like at Okayama, there are things to work on, but I also feel I made a lot of progress.”
Asked where she feels she is still lacking, Koyama pointed to eliminating mistakes in qualifying and also making the best of use of being lapped by GT500 cars in the race.
“In qualifying, in any situation you have to get the absolute maximum out of the car, but I made some mistakes,” she explained. “In the race, it’s about fuel efficiency, and sometimes not taking too many risks, learning to judge those situations well.
“I’ve realized that it’s not about showing my performance in my stint but about doing a stint that contributes to the team being able to win.
“I need to pay more attention to things I previously haven’t thought too much about. Last year, there were not many times that I managed to use the GT500 cars to overtake.
“When you are fighting at the front and everyone is running in similar conditions regarding their tires, the GT500s can be a huge help, so I think I need to consider how to use that more effectively and race more intelligently.”
Koyama and Kotaka now sit second in the championship, three points behind D’station Racing Aston Martin pair Tomonobu Fujii and Charlie Fagg, but face heading into the next race at Fuji in August with a nominal 64 kg of success weight.
“I think we had chances [to win] until Fuji, but from now on the weight is heavy and it will be tough,” said Koyama when asked about her chances of scoring a first win.
“As we’ve managed to finish on the podium twice, I think the goal now is try and keep accumulating points and then try again to win when we get to half-success weight and no success weight [in the final two races of the year].
“For now it’s just about holding out and scoring as many points as we can.”
Source: Sports Car 365