The collapse of the global auto market has not been good for motorsport around the world – and Japan took a particular hard hit with Honda and Toyota dropping out of F1 and Subaru stopping its WRC program. Nonetheless, when it comes to Japan's domestic motorsports scene, the Super GT Series had a very strong season in 2009. With new car debuts, tight competition, and new champions, '09 was a big year for Super GT.
Let's take a quick look at the season shall we?
The GT300 class saw a couple big car debuts this year, including the new Toyota Corolla Axio – seen here during its unveiling at Tokyo Auto Salon 2009. The car didn't have many good finishes this year, but it's to be expected for a debut season.
Coming later in the season was the new Subaru Legacy GT300 car. The Legacy ran just a couple of events in 2009, and will be back for a full season of competition in 2010.
In the GT300 season point standings, third place went the Jimgainer Advan Ferrari 430 of Tetsuya Tanaka and Katsuyuki Hiranaka. By the way, if the name Katsuyuki Hiranaka sounds familiar to you, that's because he was the driver of the 5Zigen Accord during its trip to the USA for time attack competition.
Second place in the GT300 championship went to the Mutiara Motors Amemiya RX7 driven by Ryo Orime and Nobteru Taniguchi, who switched to the Amemiya team for the 2009 season.
And the GT300 champions? Manabu Orido and Tatsuya Kataoka in the WedsSport/Bandoh Lexus IS350.
Not bad for a car that's been on the track for less than two seasons, eh?
Moving on to the GT500 class, third place in the championship went to Satoshi Motoyama and Benoit Treluyer in the Motul Autech GT-R. The '08 GT500 champion was a favorite for a repeat, but the competition was just too tough.
Taking both second place in the GT500 championship, and first place in the final race of the year at Twin Ring Motegi was the ARTA NSX of Ralph Firman and Takuya Izawa.
It was a fitting end for the NSX's run in Super GT. The NSX will be replaced by an all new Honda GT car for 2010.
And taking first place in the GT500 championship was the Petronas Tom's SC430 driven by Juichi Wakisaka and Andre Lotterer, who was racing in memory of his father who passed away earlier in the season.
The two champs, along with team manager Masanori Sekiya.
With the intense rivalry between the Toyota and Nissan teams, and a new Honda machine on the way, 2010 should be another exciting year for the GT500 class. The same goes for the diverse GT300 class.
For now though, the teams will enjoy some much-needed time off before the new season kicks off next spring.
-Mike Garrett
OFFICIAL SPEEDHUNTERS SUPPLIERS
why do they have two drivers in each car?
@patrick: the races are two hours long so they need two drivers so both drivers do an hour each.They usually need three for the suzuka1000km.
glad the conomy recovering now so if 09 was a big year when banker s ruined everything the 2010 should be huge.Looking forward to seeing the nsx replacement turn a wheel in anger.
minus whale make them deskops
to patrick - because they are long endurance style races . nice round up mike , always enjoy youir racing coverage
drivers need rest like all of us
I thought SH had determined that the measure of an automobile was not how fast it went around a track, but how well the wheels and tires look in the fenders. Even the Redline Time Attack year end coverage was based on wheel and tire beauty instead of race winners and vehicle speed. What's this motorsports coverage? Kind of out of place, isn't it?
This year wasnt the best for SuperGT, although like every other i have enjoyed watching it. Motorsport fell through lately with the legendary Subaru WRC Team dropping out, Honda and Toyota out of F1, and another dull season in the american leauges (NASCAR, IRL, etc.). Thats why i dont watch them. any way you slice it, the 2010 motorsport season will hopefully be better.
More!
It would nice if the SuperGT series would be televised in the USA or have a race in the USA. I'm sure that is there enough people in the USA that would enjoy watching the SuperGT series.
NASCAR>*
why cant they show this seires in aus ;(
Dino: I know you're just fishing for an argument, but to clarify, November was SLAMMED MONTH. Just like EVERY MONTH, there is a specific theme. And it's over now anyways, so you can clean the sand out of your vagina.
Hopefully I can order a Super GT review DVD soon at Kinokuniya books. Next year I'm rooting for Nobuteru Taniguchi to win a Super GT title. J. Wakasaka, M. Orido, & Daisuke Ito have all won JGTC/Super GT titles, so I think Taniguchi is the only driver left from Video Option/Hot Version not to win a title.
Glad to see 2 Malaysian company names on both GT300 & 500. Hope to see more in the near future.
It would be so gosh-darn peachy-keen nice if ALL the Japanese automakers could grow some balls and actually make decent sports cars for the road that could easily be turned into proper GT race cars. I'm gonna take a wild stab in the dark, and guess that Honda will find some mediocre FWD car to base its "GT" car on. I'm imagining a GT500 Honda Insight. That will go nicely with Honda's shift from "sports and racing" to "eco and wuss". Or maybe they can go the ugly route and use the Crosstour as a basis.
However, kudos to Toyota and Nissan for using current cars to race in GT500.
/\---uh honda is going to use the prototype NSX replacement that has been a concept the last few years as the GT car. It was almost production ready anyway so it should already be in testing phase. They are just not going to put it into production and they already got an exemption for it from SuperGT.
Jasper, if you had a penis, or a brain, you would know that when the core content suffers for the monthly theme, the relevance and reputation of the entire website is compromised. Very apt comment Dino, good call.
Wonder what will the new Honda GT car be based on. Since they stopped building the S2000 and NSX, they have nothing that even looks like a sports car except for the Civic Type R.
Wallpaper...please!!
In fact, any 2009 Super GT Wallpaper'll do...
Oh coolbeans. I was unaware that the Super GT sanctioning body were heavy practitioners of enabling. I think this could be a great jumping off point. It could open up a lot of doors for European manufacturers to start using LMP1 and LMP2 cars in the series since they aren't based on production cars. This way, the ultimate irony can be attained when Honda Japan starts co-opting Acura America LMP1 cars to race in GT500. Just slap a roof on it and they're golden. Even better, Honda could just let Acura handle all there sports car racing endeavors since Honda is more concerned with making boring unsightly hybrids and crossovers.
Fixed it!
The honda replacement is the super sports v10,the so called replacement for the NSX according to 7tune
great writeup and very nice shots. Great to hear the NSX going out on top.
I'm DLing the Suzuka race now!
@Luis - The NSX replacement was being tested long ago. It was lapping the Nurburgring by June 2008, and sounded wonderful aswell for what it's worth