40 Cars For Sugo 300km Sprint

The GT Association (GTA) has released the entry list for next weekend’s SUPER GT Sugo GT 300km Race, the first 300-kilometre sprint round since the season opener at Okayama.

There are no great surprises on the GT500 side of the entry list. NDDP Racing, Katsumasa Chiyo, and Mitsunori Takaboshi won here last year in a wet-weather race through the strength of their Michelin tyres, but it will be very hard for them to repeat as winners while carrying a strict Stage 3 fuel flow restrictor plus 48 kilogrammes of physical Success Weight.

In total, six cars are running below the standard 95 kg/h fuel flow rate, including the #36 au TOM’s Toyota GR Supra (Sho Tsuboi/Ritomo Miyata) which also has the Stage 3 fuel flow restrictor (88 kg/h), and the latest winning car, the #16 ARTA Mugen Honda NSX-GT (Nirei Fukuzumi/Hiroki Otsu) on the Stage 2 fuel flow restrictor (90.2kg/h).

Three cars have the Stage 1 fuel flow restrictor (92.6kg/h): The #14 Eneos X Prime GR Supra (Kazuya Oshima/Kenta Yamashita), the #17 Astemo NSX-GT (Koudai Tsukakoshi/Nobuharu Matsushita), and the #100 Stanley NSX-GT (Naoki Yamamoto/Tadasuke Makino).

With three races left this season, every car will be at its heaviest before the Success Weight is halved for the penultimate round at Autopolis, and then removed for the finale at Mobility Resort Motegi.

GT300’s reduced field of 25 cars has no great surprises either, but it does have four cars carrying the maximum 100kg of Success Weight, led by the #18 UPGarage Honda NSX GT3 of Takashi Kobayashi and Syun Koide, who won last time at Suzuka.

The other cars on maximum ballast are the #7 Studie BMW M4 GT3 (Seiji Ara/Bruno Spengler), #56 Realize/Nissan Mechanic Challenge GT-R (João Paulo de Oliveira/Teppei Natori), and #2 muta Racing GR86 (Yuui Tsutsumi/Hibiki Taira).

With all teams back to two drivers, there are still some changes to note. Tomei Sports will go with its all-pro pairing of Takayuki Aoki and Takuya Otaki, and NILZZ Racing is expected to welcome back Yuki Tanaka, who’s missed most of the season due to a combination of Ligier European Series commitments and illness.

It will also be worth monitoring the performance of apr’s Koki Saga in the #31 Lexus LC500h. Saga has not driven a stint in any of the previous three rounds alongside Kazuto Kotaka and third driver Yuki Nemoto.

In any event, this is SUPER GT at Sportsland Sugo – so expect the unexpected at any moment!

Feature image © GTA