On November 2-3, the final round of the 2019 Autobacs Super GT Series will see the crowning of new champions in the GT500 and GT300 classes, in the final race of the season, the Motegi GT 250km “Grand Final” at Twin Ring Motegi.
We decided to have a look into how the championships can be won in both classes, how the points leaders can quickly and comfortably wrap up the titles, and how their pursuers, from the main rivals to the long shots, can overturn their deficits and snatch the title on the last day of the year.
With that, we’ll also quickly touch on the recent form of the drivers involved, and of course, what’s at stake for the key players on each team.
Starting in the GT500 championship, with the top two teams separated by just seven points.
After leading the points for over half the season, since winning the fourth race of the season in Chang International Circuit, Lexus Team LeMans are one round away from winning their first GT500 title in seventeen years, with lead driver Oshima on the cusp of his first title in his eleventh season as a GT500 driver, and Yamashita, the next young driver to enter Toyota’s WEC Challenge Programme, winning it in his second full season.
This would also bring three-time drivers’ champion Juichi Wakisaka, who won his first title as a driver with Team LeMans in 2002, his first title as a team director, in his first year working alongside chief engineer Kazuya Abe. They will also look to take the Lexus LC500’s second championship in its third and final season before it is replaced by the new fifth-generation Toyota Supra for 2020.
The easiest routes for the #6 to clinch the title will be to win the race or finish 2nd at Motegi. They can also clinch the title if the number 37 finishes 5th or lower. If they finish 3rd, the #37 has to finish 2nd or lower. The two victories at Buriram and the Fuji 500 Miles also give them the tiebreaker for race victories, should they and the #37 end the year tied on points.
Oshima won in 2013 for Team LeMans from pole position and finished 2nd in 2016. Oshima finished 6th in last year’s Motegi 250km, one place behind his new co-driver Yamashita, who also secured his first Super Formula pole position at Motegi in 2017.
For the third consecutive season, the number 37 KeePer TOM’s Lexus LC500 of Ryo Hirakawa and Nick Cassidy will come to the season finale at Motegi with a chance at the title. It would be the fifth GT500 Drivers’ Championship for TOM’s Racing, past champions in 1997, 2006, 2009, and 2017 with Hirakawa and Cassidy.
Hirakawa and Cassidy, who already became the youngest set of GT500 Champions at age 23 two years ago, would become the youngest multi-time premier class champions at age 25 with their second championship in three years.
The KeePer TOM’s LC500 is on a roll of five straight top-four finishes with podiums at Suzuka, Buriram, and Autopolis. They now trail the #6 Wako’s LC500 by just seven points. If they win the finale at Motegi, and the #6 finishes 3rd or lower, the championship is theirs. The #37 needs to finish 4th or higher to have a chance at the title, finishing 2nd requires the #6 to finish 5th or lower, finishing 3rd requires the #6 to finish 8th or lower to win the title for the KeePer LC500.
But already in their young careers, both of the KeePer LC500’s drivers have proven to be solid performers at Motegi. Hirakawa won this event in 2015, and both he and Cassidy haven’t finished worse than 5th here in their brief GT500 careers. Motegi is where Hirakawa took his first career Super Formula victory in August, while Cassidy has three top-five finishes in as many races in that series at Motegi.
Mathematically, the “Red Car” of Matsuda & Quintarelli is still eligible to take the GT500 title, but only by the tightest of margins. The largest deficit ever overturned on the final day of the season was 14 points in 2005. Matsuda and Quintarelli need to come back from 20 and a half points back, for NISMO to win their eighth set of GT500 Drivers’ Championships.
If they do, Matsuda would win a third GT500 Drivers’ Championship that would put him in the elite echelon of three-time champions – which includes Quintarelli, who would extend his record with a fifth GT500 title. Coming back from 20.5 points back to become champions would surely put them right at the top in the discussion of Super GT’s best-ever teams.
To have a shot at the title would require the Motul GT-R to win the pole position in Saturday qualifying. If they cannot, they are eliminated from title contention before Sunday’s race. If they do win pole position, they then have to win the race from pole, as they did before, in 2014 and in 2017, with the #6 finishing outside the points (11th or lower) and the #37 finishing 5th or lower.
If any team and drivers can pull off this miracle, it might be this one. Matsuda has four victories at Motegi, and Quintarelli has three, including the two times they won together in the last five years. They have six podium finishes each at Motegi. And in single-seaters, one of Matsuda’s five victories in his 2008 championship season came at Motegi. Speaking of Matsuda, a win would also extend an individual series record of consecutive seasons with a race win, which currently sits at nine, from 2010 to 2018.
