Nissan has taken pole position for the opening round of the Super GT Series after the Motul Autech GT-R stormed to top spot in qualifying for its first race.
Michael Krumm had posted the second fastest time during the initial part of qualifying, but then put in the quickest lap when it matter during the Super Lap part of the session to secure pole by three-tenths of a second in the car he will share with Masataka Yanagida.
Krumm did a perfect job for us, the Japanese racer reflected. I'm really glad with this result. Krumm was fired up from the morning session, so I was able to watch the Super Lap with a sense of assurance.
In tomorrow's race we are going to see a battle between these strong GT-R machines, and the rivals are probably going to join in to make it a hot race. But if we run to our full potential, we should be able to keep the lead and win.
Ahead of the race debut for the GT-R, the Xanavi Nismo and Calsonic Impul teams ensured that Nissan locked out the top three slots on the grid, with Benoit Treluyer putting the #23 car second on the grid having set the pace in the first part of the session and Tsugio Matsuda taking third.
The three GT-Rs were the only cars to qualify below the 1m 52s marker, with best of the rest' being the Petronas Tom's SC430 of Andre Lotterer. Yuji Tachikawa and Takashi Kogure rounded out the top six.
In the GT300 class, pole went to the Privee Kenzo Asset Shiden machine driven by Hiroki Kathoh, with quick lap of 2m 05.169s.
Katoh had been comfortably the quickest driver during the first part of qualifying, lapping more than a second quicker than any other GT300 runner, and while the remainder of the pack closed in during the Super Lap session, Katoh was still able to take pole by four-tenths of a second.
![Michael Krumm/Matasaka Yanagida - Motul Autech GT-R [Pic credit: Nissan]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/418395.jpg)
