What began in 1994 as the All-Japan Grand Touring Car Championship, has evolved into Super GT, Japan’s top national racing category, and the fastest-running, fastest-growing GT racing series in the world today. The GT Revolution has finally taken a foothold on the world’s stage in anticipation of the milestone twenty-fifth full season of Super GT.
The 2018 Autobacs Super GT Series features 44 cars in two different classes, each fighting for victory in both the GT500 and GT300 classes, and over the course of a year-long odyssey, they will battle over eight rounds, spanning 3,000 kilometers, and fight for their classes’ richest prize: The GT500 and GT300 championships.
That odyssey begins at the Okayama International Circuit, the technical and abrasive 3.703 kilometer circuit which blends long straightaways with a challenging selection of slow and medium speed corner complexes, and an 82-lap, 300km first round, the ninth time in ten years that the season has begun at Okayama, the former home of the F1 Pacific Grand Prix in the mid-90s.
Last year, Lexus Team KeePer TOM’s led a historic 1-2-3-4-5-6 finish for the new Lexus LC500 in its debut race, and Goodsmile Racing & Team UKYO ended a three-year winless drought for their first victory with Mercedes. Both teams went on to ride the momentum of that season-opening victory all the way to the GT500 and GT300 championships, respectively.
History shows that over 33 percent of teams who win the first race of the season go on to win the championship, not a very large percentage, but still, every team goes into this first round of the season looking for the maximum points on offer, and to continue to score points as the season progresses, so it’s important to start the season on a positive note.
This is the only time you’ll see all the cars run without ballast, apart from the season finale at Twin Ring Motegi in November. These are the fastest GT racing cars in their purest state, no weight handicaps or fuel flow restrictions to worry about just yet.
GT500 of course, will see the full-season debuts of Jenson Button (#100 Raybrig NSX-GT) and Kamui Kobayashi (#39 Denso Kobelco SARD LC500), along with the first Super GT start for Felix Rosenqvist (#6 Wako’s 4CR LC500). Meanwhile, home-grown talents Kenta Yamashita (#19 WedsSport Advan LC500) and Mitsunori Takaboshi (#24 Forum Engineering Advan GT-R) step up to the premier class full-time as well.
Rosenqvist and Kazuya Oshima have tested very well in the off-season, particularly at Okayama, but the kings of this circuit in recent years are Ryo Hirakawa and Nick Cassidy, driving the #1 KeePer TOM’s LC500 as the reigning series champions. The KeePer TOM’s LC500 have won three of the last four races at Okayama (2014, 2015, and 2017) with a second place in 2016. Safe to say, they are a team that starts strong, every year, and wants to start their championship defence just as strong as they did when they went on to win it all in 2017.
The challenge from Honda this year, of course, is very formidable. While Button and Naoki Yamamoto will garner the majority of the attention in their first race aboard the Raybrig NSX, the #17 Keihin NSX-GT (Koudai Tsukakoshi & Takashi Kogure) was quickest on the second day of pre-season testing at Okayama, and they look poised to finally snap a winless run that’s gone on for nearly eight seasons.
Putting the embarrassment of their 2017 meltdown at this track behind them, it could be a big year for the redeveloped NSX-GT, which may have a big power advantage over the field.
Nissan are also optimistic of a return to form in 2017, where they’ll be led by the #23 Motul Autech GT-R of Tsugio Matsuda and Ronnie Quintarelli, last year’s runners-up in the GT500 standings. Matsuda is a three-time winner at Okayama, most recently in 2016 with Quintarelli and NISMO, they certainly know how to get around this tricky, tight circuit. The #12 Calsonic Impul GT-R (Daiki Sasaki & Jann Mardenborough) is also a team to watch after a great pre-season testing programme.
The GT300 class is another outstanding field of 29 cars, a mixture of GT3 customer cars renowned the world over, competing against some of the most unique designs in Japanese motorsport.
Mercedes have been the kings of Okayama since the debut of the new Mercedes-AMG GT3 in 2016. The #65 LEON Cvstos AMG (Haruki Kurosawa & Naoya Gamou) won this event in 2016, and the defending champions, the #0 Goodsmile Hatsune Miku AMG of Nobuteru Taniguchi & Tatsuya Kataoka, won this event in 2017.
Though five of the last six races at Okayama have been won by FIA GT3 cars, the Mother Chassis cars, such as the #25 Hoppy 86 MC (Takamitsu Matsui & Sho Tsuboi), looked very impressive in testing, as did the JAF-GT300 cars like the #31 Toyota Prius apr GT (Koki Saga & Kohei Hirate) – the car that won in 2015.
GT300 fans will also have the debut of two new Honda NSX GT3s to look forward to, from Modulo Drago Corse and CarGuy Racing, and the two second-generation Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3s making their debut with Gainer. There is also a good crop of rookie drivers, headlined by Marco Mapelli (#88 ManePa Lamborghini GT3), Ritomo Miyata (#60 Syntium LM Corsa RC F), and Hiroki Otsu (#34 Modulo Kenwood NSX GT3).
The 2018 Autobacs Super GT Series gets underway this weekend at Okayama, with practice and qualifying on Saturday, and then the big season premiere on Sunday, which will be live on NISMO TV for the international audience. Viewers in Japan will be treated to another season of live coverage for all sessions on the J Sports television networks and J Sports On Demand.
DSC will have reports from qualifying and the race, you won’t want to miss any of it!
