32 years is a long time in the world of motorsport. And when you’re Porsche, to wait 32 years for another win in a major endurance race is an eternity.
That’s how long it’s been since Porsche last claimed overall victory in the Suzuka 1000km. To illustrate how long ago that was: Of the six Porsche factory drivers competing in the Pro class for Absolute Racing, five of them weren’t born yet the last time one of their manufacturer’s cars won the race.
Alexandre Gibot, the Managing Director of Porsche Motorsport Asia Pacific, acknowledged this anomaly – and hopes this will be the year it changes.
“We don’t want to be stuck with the last winner in 1994,” he told DSC. “We want to refresh the storybook.”
Porsche’s first Suzuka 1000km win came in the second year of the event, 1967, when Shintaro Taki and Kenjiro Tanaka drove their Porsche 906 to a commanding victory – without ever needing to change a set of Bridgestone tyres along the way.
A few more wins came throughout the rest of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s until the Oil Shock put the race on hold for six years. But when it came back, Porsche became the race’s dominant manufacturer. Porsche won seven times from 1981, the famous Wollek and Pescarolo victory in the Italiya-Kremer 935K/3 – to 1989, when the legendary Kunimitsu Takahashi scored his record fourth win in an Advan Alpha Nova 962C.
Porsche’s 11th Suzuka 1000km win in ’94 came during a crossroads for sports car racing on the international stage. It was the first year of the upstart BPR Global GT Series, and its co-founders Jürgen Barth and Stéphane Ratel were not only co-promoters of the Suzuka 1000km, they drove in it too.
GT cars from Europe and Japan populated most of the grid that year – yet it was a lone holdover from the Group C days, a Team SARD Toyota 94C-V, that was expected to dominate the race and win by several laps. It did so, until an accident at around half-distance took it out of contention.
That opened the door for Larbre Competition’s Porsche 911 Turbo S LM GT1 driven by Jean-Pierre Jarier, Jesús Pareja, and Bob Wollek to win the race – just as this crew did in Paul Ricard to win the very first BPR Global GT event. 11 wins is where Porsche has stood for over three decades: Still the event’s most successful marque, but shut out of opportunities to add to that total.
In 1997 and 1998, Porsche fielded full works efforts in the Suzuka 1000km when GT1’s star was burning at its brightest, only to be run through by the unstoppable juggernaut that was Mercedes-Benz’s CLK-GTR and CLK-LM.
Then there was a two-decade period where Porsche didn’t have a GT500 car with which to run for overall victory (though some lower class wins would come) and then in 2018, the Suzuka summer endurance race became a GT3 showcase round, putting Porsche back in the lead fight. But over the last three editions of the Suzuka 10 Hours and 1000km, three different German manufacturers not named Porsche have taken that victory.
If anyone’s come closest to breaking through recently, it’s Absolute Racing, which has put at least one of its Porsches on the overall podium in each of the last two years: Third in 2019, and second in 2025. (Not to mention, Absolute also entered last year’s Bronze Cup-winning car, which finished fourth).
The Asian super-squad is now running two cars in the Pro category this year, including one in partnership with beloved American-based privateer AO Racing.
Alessandro Ghiretti is one of Porsche’s newest factory driver hires, recently promoted to GT3 competition after winning the Porsche Supercup in 2025. But an excellent first season racing for Porsche, primarily in GT World Challenge Asia, has shown that the young Frenchman is ready for the spotlight.
Ghiretti said of the prospect of winning Sunday’s race, “It would be mega. It’s always funny when we have such history like this. But it’s a challenge.
“I want to thank Porsche Motorsport and Absolute Racing for the trust they’ve put into me, to put me on such a good lineup for the 1000 kilometres of Suzuka in my first year,” he told DSC. He’ll share the multicoloured #7 Bosch Motorsport-sponsored car with reigning DTM champion Ayhancan Güven, and Dorian Boccolacci, the runner-up at this year’s Bathurst 12 Hour.
“I feel proud and really happy to share the car with two other good drivers, it shows that they (Porsche) believe in me.”
The AO by Absolute Racing “Bushi Rex” car of Julien Andlauer, Laurin Heinrich, and Alessio Picariello is yet another creative addition to AO Racing’s fantastical universe of mythical racing monsters like the original Rexy, his sister Roxy, and Spike the Dragon over in LMP2. All three of its drivers are tied to AO Racing, and like Ghiretti, all three want to win this race.
Picariello is the only one of the Absolute six who was alive for Porsche’s last win in ’94, and the one with the most cumulative racing experience in the Asian region.
“It would be great to do it, especially with Bushi Rex,” said the Belgian. “The collab between AO and Absolute Racing is also very nice because I know both teams really well now. And then to share the car with Laurin and Julien, it’s extra-special. We definitely came here to win, so we will do our best for it.”
Andlauer has never raced at Suzuka in real life before this weekend, but like his teammates, he too has expressed the confidence and belief that he and his close colleagues can led the way to a Porsche victory.
“It’s gonna be a great challenge,” Andlauer said. “There’s a few very strong line-ups against us also, but overall, I think we have a very competitive package to win the race. Let’s try and make the best out of it.
“It’s my first time in Suzuka, one of the favourite tracks of many drivers. And over the last years, the races are always very impressive, full of action, and also very tricky. The track is full of challenges and you need to get everything right in order to put a lap together.”
And then there’s Heinrich, who launched to superstardom after driving Rexy and AO Racing to an IMSA championship two years ago. “It would mean a lot (to win this race), certainly,” said the German. “I always love coming here to race in Suzuka or Japan in general, and to do that together with Rexy for its first race in Suzuka is something great.
“It’s no secret, we’ve come to win. I think we have the team and the line-up to fight at the very sharp end of the field.
“We shouldn’t forget also, this time we’ve come with our (911 GT3 R) Evo package, so it’s the first time that this car will drive on this track. There’s some new things, but things which make me even more confident.”
Of course these are merely the two leading challengers out of a 10-car total fleet for PMAP at the Suzuka 1000km this year: There are seven Bronze Cup contenders in the stable, as well as a Pro-Am entry, all representing a balance of teams from the East and the West.
When it comes to the Pro cars, it’s easy to believe that Porsche is on the precipice of breaking its 32-year winless drought at the Suzuka Summer Endurance. And that belief isn’t misplaced. On paper, these are two of the strongest entries in the race, if not the strongest, in terms of the combination of all factors – drivers, team, car, engineers, et cetera. They all have a confidence that’s easy to buy into.
They carry the hopes of Porsche fans throughout Japan, and some watching from all corners of the world, but fewer and fewer can vividly recall the last time one of their favourite cars won this historic event.
Come Sunday evening when the fireworks are launched over Suzuka Circuit, the 50th Suzuka 1000km could be where Porsche finally gets to write a new page in its history at Japan’s great endurance sports car race.
Images © SRO Motorsports Group, Honda Mobilityland, John Brooks, Porsche Motorsport Asia Pacific
