SUPER GT Round 3 @ Sepang International Circuit

YES!!! The Super GT is here again. The series has been here in Malaysia since 2000 and it is the only race which takes place out of Japan. It was originally known as the All-Japan Grand Touring Car Championship or JGTC when it was found in 1993.

It has been so many years that I wanted to take my camera down there and shoot some serious actions but unfortunately every year I was travelling during the event here in Malaysia and have been missing all the excitement. This year I told myself I will be there no matter what and have gotten myself a great entry pass, so nothing will be stop me this time :)

What’s the SUPER GT about?

It is a grand touring car series promoted by the GT-Association (GT-A) and officially authorized by the Japan Automobile Federation (JAF), it is also directly authorized by the FIA.

Originally, the annual race series featured races on world-renowned Japanese race tracks that include the Twin Ring Motegi, Fuji Speedway and Suzuka Circuit. Since year 2000 however, rounds have been hosted on tracks outside Japan including the Sepang International Circuit (Malaysia) and the California Speedway as an exhibition race. Races are held as a single long endurance race of 300km or greater, the 1000km Suzuka event being one such example.

There are two categories in the Super GT; GT500 and GT300, both are restricted to 500hp and 300hp respectively. Complying with the technical regulation of JAF, the cars are greatly modified from the originals. To keep the battle close through every lap of every race, technical regulations were established to maintain equilibrium among each car’s capability. With minimum weight and air restrictors that the cars must be fitted with, performance is strictly controlled to keep the field closer together.

In order to ensure maximum excitement, both of the GT500 and GT300 category are run at the same time although points are awarded separately for each category. Apart from sport cars, personal luxury cars such as the Lexus SC430 and BMW Z4, and small family cars such as Toyota Corolla Axio have also joined the series.

This year Teams and Drivers

GT500 Category

1) Weider Honda Racing - Takashi Kogure | Loic Duval
2) LEXUS TEAM LeMans ENEOS - Daisuke Ito | Kazuya Oshima
3) AUTOBACS RACING TEAM AGURI - Hideki Mutoh | Takashi Kobayashi
4) TEAM IMPUL - Tsugio Matsuda | Joao Paulo Lima de Oliveira
5) KEIHIN REAL RACING - Toshihiro Kaneishi | Koudai Tsukakoshi
6) LEXUS TEAM WedsSport BANDOH - Tatsuya Kataoka | Seiji Ara
7) NISMO - Satoshi Motoyama | Benoit Treluyer
8) KONDO RACING - Hironobu Yasuda | Bjorn Wirdheim
9) NAKAJIMA RACING - Ryo Michigami | Yuhki Nakayama
10) LEXUS TEAM KRAFT - Juichi Wakisaka | Andre Couto
11) LEXUS TEAM PETRONAS TOM'S - Andre Lotterer | Kazuki Nakajima
12) LEXUS TEAM ZENT CERUMO - Yuji Tachikawa | Kohei Hirate
13) LEXUS TEAM SARD - Hiroaki Ishiura | Takuto Iguchi
14) MOLA - Masataka Yanagida | Ronnie Quintarelli
15) TEAM KUNIMITSU - Takuya Izawa | Naoki Yamamoto

GT300 Category

1) Cars Tokai Dream28 - Kazuho Takahashi | Hiroki Katoh
2) GSR&Studie with TeamUKYO - Nobuteru Taniguchi | Taku Bamba
3) TEAM MACH - Tetsuji Tamanaka | Haruki Kurosawa
4) DIRECTION RACING - Carlo Van Dam | Akira Mizutani
5) JIMGAINER - Tetsuya Tanaka | Katsuyuki Hiranaka
6) Team SG CHANGI - Ryo Orime | Alexandre Imperatori
7) TEAM ART TASTE - Yasuhiro Shimizu | TBN
8) R'Qs MOTORSPORTS - Hisashi Wada | Masaki Jyonai
9) SAMURAI Team TSUCHIYA - Akihiro Tsuzuki | Takeshi Tsuchiya
10) Team TAISAN CINECITTA - Hidedshi Matsuda | Kyosuke Mineo
11) LMP MOTORSPORT - Yutaka Yamagishi | Hideki Yamauchi
12) apr - Koki Saga | Yuki Iwasaki
13) HANKOOK KTR - Masami Kageyama | Tomonobu Fujii
14) HANKOOK KTR - Hiroshi Takamori | Michael Kim
15) Team TAISAN CINECITTA - Shinichi Yamaji | Hiroshi Koizumi
16) AUTOBACS RACING TEAM AGURI - Shinichi Takagi | Kousuke Matsuura
17) R&D SPORT - Tetsuya Yamano | Kota Sasaki
18) A speed - Hiroki Yoshimoto | Kazuki Hoshino
19) ThunderAsia Racing - Melvin Choo | Hiroki Yoshida
20) apr - Morio Nitta | Yuji Kunimoto
21) JLOC - Yuya Sakamoto | Takayuki Aoki
22) JLOC - Atsushi Yogo | Manabu Orido
23) JLOC - Hiroyuki Iiri | Yuhi Sekiguchi
24) TOMEI SPORTS - Atsushi Tanaka | Kazuyoshi Okamura

Location


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See you in Sepang on 18th and 19th June 2011 | Ticketing is available here