42 Car Entry List For SUPER GT Suzuka Summer 450km Race

The GT Association (GTA) has published the entry list for next weekend’s fifth round of the 2022 Autobacs SUPER GT Series, the Fujimaki Group Suzuka GT 450km Race on 27-28 August.

It is the third and final 450km semi-endurance round of the season, taking place on the final weekend of August at legendary Suzuka Circuit: A date which has traditionally been saved for the annual Suzuka Summer Endurance sports car race.

But since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Suzuka 10 Hours – successor to the Suzuka 1000km – has been put on the shelf, and the SUPER GT Series has stepped in to fill that slot in the calendar yet again. It’s a 77 lap race with two compulsory pit stops, a similar format to the one used in the two races at Fuji Speedway.

In the GT500 class, there are no changes to the field of 15 cars. As the second half of the season begins, the top three teams in the championship are separated by five points. It’s a home round for Honda at one of two circuits owned by the manufacturer. But in recent years, Nissan have ruled the premier class – they’ve won four straight races at Suzuka dating back to 2020, which includes the first win for the new Nissan Z GT500 in the Suzuka 300km back in May.

The #3 CraftSports Motul Nissan Z of Katsumasa Chiyo and Mitsunori Takaboshi will be going for the season sweep at Suzuka, just as Tsugio Matsuda and Ronnie Quintarelli did in 2020. But their challenge will be difficult: The NDDP Racing duo will be laden with the ‘Stage 1’ fuel flow restrictor (92.6 kilogrammes per hour) and an additional 35kg of physical ballast.

Also on the Stage 1 fuel flow restrictor are the #37 KeePer TOM’s Toyota GR Supra of championship leaders Sacha Fenestraz and Ritomo Miyata, and the second-ranked #14 Eneos X Prime GR Supra (Kazuya Oshima/Kenta Yamashita), while the rest of the field will have the full 95 kg/h of fuel burn available. For these leading teams, championship points will be at a premium – since the introduction of the current points and Success Ballast format in 2009, only two teams have led after four races and gone on to win the GT500 Championship in the same year.

In the GT300 class, Hoppy Team Tsuchiya are back after missing the most recent Fuji GT 100 Lap Race due to a testing accident at Suzuka. The championship-winning privateer squad will now aim for their first points of what has been a difficult season so far.

The return of the #25 Hoppy Schatz Toyota GR Supra (Takamitsu Matsui/Seita Nonaka), rebuilt and fitted with a new Toyota V8 engine, brings the GT300 field back up to 27 cars for the weekend.

The other notable absence from Fuji, Drago Corse, sadly looks unlikely to return at all in 2022.

Suzuka 300km winners BMW Team Studie x CSL are expected to have Tsubasa Kondo back as their third driver alongside Seiji Ara and Augusto Farfus. But in addition to carrying 63kg of Success Weight, the new #7 Studie BMW M4 GT3 will also have to work through BoP adjustments that will make their task of a Suzuka sweep even more difficult. Since the last race at Suzuka, the BMW has gained 15kg of BoP weight and lost 50-70 mbar of turbo boost pressure from 5500~6750 RPM.

Another BoP change since the May Suzuka race is a hard limit of 110 litres of fuel capacity for the two GT300 Mother Chassis vehicles, this impacts cars such as the #5 Mach Syaken/Air Buster MC86 (Yusuke Tomibayashi/Reiji Hiraki) that finished second here in May.

There is a change of drivers at Pacific CarGuy Racing, who will roll out with an all-pro lineup of Kei Cozzolino, and Naoki Yokomizo – who fills in for an ELMS-bound Takeshi Kimura.

Eight teams will use a three-driver rotation, including SHADE Racing, who have recruited former JLOC and Team UPGarage driver Shinnosuke Yamada to drive their #20 Toyota GR86 alongside Katsuyuki Hiranaka and Eijiro Shimizu. Yamada drives SHADE Racing’s road-going GR86 in the Super Taikyu Series ST-4 class, and will be trying to give the first-year team their first points of the season.

Along with Yamada and the aforementioned Kondo, Yusuke Shiotsu (Gainer #10), Hibiki Taira (apr GR86), Kazuto Kotaka (apr Prius), Masaya Kono (NILZZ Racing), Takeshi Suehiro (Arnage Racing), and Yusaku Shibata (Tomei Sports) reprise their third driver duties from the Fuji 100 Lap race.

There could be a big swing in the GT300 Championship after Suzuka: The #56 Realize/Nissan Mechanic Challenge GT-R GT3 (Kiyoto Fujinami/João Paulo de Oliveira) is already at the maximum 100kg of Success Ballast, and the #61 Subaru BRZ R&D Sport (Takuto Iguchi/Hideki Yamauchi) isn’t far behind on +89kg of ballast following their win at Fuji.

Images © GTA