The 2018 Pirelli Super Taikyu Series draws to a close this weekend at the Okayama International Circuit, with two three-hour races in the final round of the season.
While the major class titles in ST-X (FIA GT3) and ST-TCR have already been decided as of the previous round at Twin Ring Motegi, three other championships are set to go right down to the wire in the ST-2, ST-3, and ST-5 classes.
ST-5 will race alongside ST-4 in the first of the two three-hour races. ST-4, of course, has been dominated by the two-time champion team, the #86 TOM’s Spirit Toyota 86 (Takamitsu Matsui/Sho Tsuboi/Yuichi Nakayama). That said, this final race will be a good opportunity for challengers like the #13 Endless Sports Toyota 86 (Ryo Ogawa/Tsubasa Takahashi/Masaya Hanazato/Ryosuke Kure) or the #884 Hayashi Telempu Shade Racing Toyota 86 (Katsuyuki Hiranaka/Hiro Hayashi) to pick up their first wins of the season and end 2018 on a high note.
But the focus of the Group 2 race will be in ST-5, where with a potential 22 points available, 4.5 points separate the championship-leading #88 Murakami Motors Mazda Roadster ND (Hiroyuki Murakami/Keiji Amemiya) from the second-placed #2 Team221 Mazda Roadster (Katsuhiko Tsutsui/Koji Yamanishi/Junichiro Yamashita/Yuta Kamimura).
The bright orange Murakami Motors Roadster, the 2017 champion team, carries the momentum of their Fuji Super TEC 24 Hours victory, while Team221 have two wins on the season and have an edge in drivers with high-level experience, such as the veteran Yamanishi and young rising star Kamimura.
The ST-5 grid also boasts five wild-card entries, including the #67 Team Yamato Honda Fit 3 RS (Ryohei Yasui/Ryo Nakagawa) which scored an upset win as a wildcard at Sportsland SUGO.
Group 1’s race is led at the top by the new ST-X champions, the #99 Y’s Distraction GTNET Nissan GT-R GT3 (Teruhiko Hamano/Kazuki Hoshino/Kiyoto Fujinami). Nissan are also represented by the #3 Endless GT-R (Yuke Taniguchi/Hideki Yamauchi/Tsubasa Mekaru) which won the last round at Motegi, and the #24 ThreeBond Nissan Gakuen GT-R (Yuudai Uchida/Tomonobu Fujii/Kazuki Hiramine), in this team’s final Super Taikyu race before the programme steps up to the GT300 class of Super GT.
Audi are still in search of an elusive win in the top class, and their two-car effort is stacked with international talent with the #81 J-Fly Racing R8 LMS GT3 (Jeffrey Lee/André Couto/Alessio Picariello) and the #83 Phoenix Racing Asia R8 (Lim Keong Wee/Mathias Beche/Melvin Moh) representing the four rings.
The #112 Rn-sports Mercedes-AMG GT3 (Atsushi Sato/Ryosei Yamashita/Norio Kubo) is back after missing the Motegi round, and making their first appearance of 2018 after focusing on their maiden Super GT campaign, CarGuy Racing are back with the #999 Lamborghini Huracán GT3 (Takeshi Kimura/Kei Cozzolino/Afiq Yazid).
ST-TCR is already decided as well, with the #97 Modulo Honda Civic TCR (Tadao Uematsu/Shinji Nakano/Hiroki Otsu/Takashi Kobayashi) winning the championship at Motegi. They along with the #98 Floral Civic TCR (Taiyou Iida/Hiroki Katoh/TBA) have dominated the class so far. A quartet of Audi RS3 LMS and one Volkswagen Golf TCR stand to prevent the Dome Racing Civics from taking the final victory of the season.
Keep a close eye on the #19 BRP Audi Mie RS3 (Hirobon/Takeshi Matsumoto/Takuro Shinohara/Yossy) and the #45 Prisma Illya RS3 (Naoto Takeda/Takuya Shirasaka/Shozo Tagahara) – with Takeda and Shirasaka having just wrapped up a dominant campaign in the GT3 Am Cup of Blancpain GT Series Asia.
That leaves ST-2 and ST-3 to be decided. Going into this final race, the #59 DAMD Motul Subaru WRX STI (Manabu Osawa/Hitoshi Gotoh/Takuto Iguchi/Mizuki Ishizaka) leads the ST-2 championship tables by 16.5 points over the #6 Shinryo Auto/Dixcel Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X (Tomohiro Tomimasu/Yasushi Kikuchi/Masazumi Ohashi).
With the Subaru leading 4-1 in wins over the Mitsubishi, it looks a near certainty that TOWA INTEC Racing will wrap up their sixth consecutive ST-2 class title – but anything can certainly happen in a “brief” three-hour race!
That leaves the big-time fight for the ST-3 championship, with the top three teams separated by just eight points, and all three teams boasting drivers with big-time racing experience.
The #62 Denso Le Beausset Lexus RC350 (Koki Saga/Kenta Yamashita/Ritomo Miyata) leads by 6.5 points, just off their first win of the season at Motegi. Yamashita will be riding the momentum of podiums in Super GT and Super Formula in back-to-back weekends, and veteran Saga and 19-year-old phenom Miyata will surely play a part in Le Beausset Motorsports’ success.
The #38 muta Racing RC350 (Makoto Hotta/Ryohei Sakaguchi/Morio Nitta) is 2nd, having had a great first race with their “new” Lexus at Motegi. The team usually runs with just Hotta and GT300 veteran Sakaguchi, but Nitta, just two weeks removed from his 20th career GT300 class win at Autopolis, could be the “secret weapon” that they need to get over the top.
8 points out of the lead are the #68 Saitama Toyopet GreenBrave Toyota Mark X (Naoki Hattori/Shigekazu Wakisaka/Takayuki Hiranuma), winners at the 24 hours of Fuji. A championship for the GreenBrave squad would give team leader Hattori yet another proud accolade in his storied career.
The ST-Z (FIA GT4) class, meanwhile, will be represented by a new entry, as the Ginetta G55 GT4 makes its first-ever Super Taikyu appearance courtesy of Kyoto-based Monocolle Motor Sport!
The G55 GT4’s racing credentials need little exposition, and with a capable car and a driver lineup led by GT500 race winner Hironobu Yasuda and experienced gentleman racer Hideki Hirota, an overall top-ten finish could be in the cards on debut.
Both races take place on Sunday 4 November, starting with the Group 2 race (ST-4, ST-5) from 8:30 – 11:30 AM JST, then the Group 1 race (ST-X, ST-Z, ST-TCR, ST-1, ST-2, ST3) from 13:35 – 16:35 JST, and both will be free to watch live on the Super Taikyu TV YouTube channel.
Images courtesy of Super Taikyu Organisation (STO) and Monocolle
