The GT Association (GTA) has published the entry list for the upcoming Autopolis GT 300km Race, scheduled for 24 October at Autopolis International Racing Course.
After successfully returning to Japan, Sacha Fenestraz will officially return to the Autobacs Super GT Series at this event. Fenestraz will drive the #37 KeePer TOM’s Toyota GR Supra GT500 alongside Ryo Hirakawa, who himself has recently returned from taking part in a test at Circuit de Barcelona-Cataluñya in Spain with the Toyota Gazoo Racing WEC team.
The championship-leading #1 Stanley Honda NSX-GT of Naoki Yamamoto and Tadasuke Makino will have a tall task ahead of them to finish in the points at Autopolis. They’re the only car carrying the maximum 100 kilogrammes of effective Success Ballast – applied as 50kg of Success Weight, and a Stage 3 fuel flow restrictor which will limit their fuel burn to 88 kilogrammes per hour.
The #17 Astemo NSX-GT (Koudai Tsukakoshi/Bertrand Baguette), #36 au TOM’s GR Supra (Yuhi Sekiguchi/Sho Tsuboi), and #14 Eneos X Prime GR Supra (Kazuya Oshima/Kenta Yamashita will each have the Stage 2 fuel flow restrictor (90.2 kg/h) as part of their Success Ballast for the weekend. Behind them, the aforementioned #37 KeePer TOM’s GR Supra of Hirakawa & Fenestraz is carrying the Stage 1 fuel flow restrictor (92.6 kg/h), as is the #12 Calsonic Impul Nissan GT-R (Kazuki Hiramine/Nobuharu Matsushita), the #3 CraftSports Motul GT-R (Kohei Hirate/Katsumasa Chiyo), and the #23 Motul Autech GT-R (Tsugio Matsuda/Ronnie Quintarelli).
The last Super GT race at Autopolis, held in 2019, was won by Heikki Kovalainen and Yuichi Nakayama. Their #39 Denso Kobelco SARD GR Supra is one of seven cars carrying less than 50kg of Success Ballast, meaning they’ll have the full 95kg of fuel burn available to them.
In the GT300 class, it’s a full 29 car entry list with R’Qs Motor Sports back in action after missing Sugo.
Sena Sakaguchi, who filled in for Fenestraz at TGR Team KeePer TOM’s in the first five races of the season, will return to the GT300 class in K-Tunes Racing’s #96 Lexus RC F GT3 alongside three-time GT300 Champion Morio Nitta. Nitta has scored just eight points this season, with a best finish of sixth at the opening round in Okayama.
The only other changes involve a bit of gentleman driver swapping between Nissan’s pro-am teams. Atsushi Tanaka will drive the #360 RunUp Rivaux Nissan GT-R GT3 alongside Takayuki Aoki. Rookie Yudai Uchida, who has driven for Tomei Sports this season, will move over to NILZZ Racing’s #48 Shokumou/K’s Frontier GT-R, joining Yuki Tanaka.
The top three teams in the GT300 Championship have all reached the maximum 100kg threshold of Success Weight for this race: The #61 Subaru BRZ R&D Sport (Takuto Iguchi/Hideki Yamauchi), the #56 Realize/Nissan Automobile Technical College GT-R (Kiyoto Fujinami/João Paulo de Oliveira), and the #244 Takanoko-no-yu Toyota GR Supra (Atsushi Miyake/Yuui Tsutsumi). In total, eight cars have at least 75kg of Success Weight on board for this weekend.
The Balance of Performance changes are fairly minor from the last time the series visited Autopolis. Since the last round at Sugo, however, there has been one change impacting the GT300 original construction vehicles: They will have a 27.5mm refuelling device supply hose restrictor installed for the first time this season.
The hybridized #31 Toyota GR Sport Prius PHV apr GT will also have a larger air restrictor in exchange for 30kg of additional BoP weight.
Images courtesy of the GT Association (GTA)
