This Motegi round was the final stage of the 2009 Super GT series which consisted of nine rounds. Because both GT500 and GT300 class champions were to be decided here and, especially in the lesser class as many as six teams still had a mathematical chance to win the title, naturally the focus of attention was on the outcome of the championship battle.

Though the surfaces were dry, it was cold and overcast on Saturday when the qualifying sessions were run. Mainly because the prior tire testing was done in relatively warmer conditions, the tires brought in to Motegi didn't work well under the Saturday's track conditions, which forced HIS ADVAN Kondo GT-R to face an uphill fight. As a result, the car ended the knock-out system qualifying session, which returned to the series since the Suzuka round in August, in Q2 and was to start the race from the 12th grid.

As the time for start was approaching, the temperature of the track surfaces, which were totally dry, was only 23℃ and even lowering gradually. This was a bad news for the tire performance, as it was on the previous day, but it also meant that the tire life should be longer than usual with a reasonable grip level and it actually worked in the Sunday's race.

The starting driver of HIS ADVAN Kondo GT-R, J.P. de Oliveira, made a good getaway as usual. His skill earned one position during the opening lap, before moving up to seventh on Lap 5 then sixth on Lap8, by steering clear of some melees on the track.

At the end of Lap 27, when the 53 laps race reached its halfway point, de Oliveira made a scheduled pit stop and the team strategically decided not to change the tires "to aim for a come-from-behind victory."

HIS ADVAN Kondo GT-R, which was briefly running in third due to the pit stops of other cars, resumed racing in seventh with Seiji Ara at the wheel. Eyeing even their second win of the season, he drove quite well but, in its closing stage, the race was interrupted because of an accident and subsequent Safety Car period.

By driving slowly behind the Safety Cars, the rubbers got cold and HIS ADVAN Kondo GT-R was forced to struggle until the tires were warmed up again. On top of this, Ara's pace became even slower for the last ten laps because the air valve of left-hand front wheel was damaged after a contact with another car.

Consequently, the car had to settle for finishing in 11th, despite having hoped for the second consecutive podium finish. But HIS ADVAN Kondo GT-R certainly displayed some good performances throughout the year, with the victory in the season opener on the top of its tally.

The GT300 class was the happy hunting ground for the ADVAN equipped teams once again. Headed by WedsSport IS350 (Manabu Orido/Tatsuya Kataoka), Daishin ADVAN Ferrari (Takayuki Aoki/Tomonobu Fujii), Apple K-One Shiden (Hiroki Katoh/Hiroki Yoshimoto) and M7 Mutiara Motors Amemiya SGC7 (Nobuteru Taniguchi/Ryo Orime) formed the top four, all registering their times in 1'56" bracket, and actually the top twelve cars were ADVAN shoed, in the first official qualifying session.

Then only Aoki managed to put the time in 1'53" bracket in the second session which was run in the knock out system and placed his Ferrari on the pole position in style. Following ARTA Garaiya in second, WedsSport IS350 and Amemiya's RX-7 sat on the second row.

As the Daishin team already had lost the chance to get the title, they just aimed for their second win of the season. Contrarily, the three cars sat on the second, third and fourth grids were still contending for the championship as well as the victory of this race, so their battle could be fierce.

The race was led by the pole sitting Daishin ADVAN Ferrari which built a comfortable margin from the start and no one was able to threaten its lead position until the finish. The team had endured some unlucky races in mid-season, but after scoring the first triumph in the seventh round at Fuji, they maintained the momentum and concluded the debut season of their new Ferrari with their second win.

The teams' championship was effectively contended between M7 Mutiara Motors Amemiya SGC7, WedsSport IS350 and Jim Gainer ADVAN F430 and the latter two cars hotly fought for third place.

With all three cars having run flawlessly, WedsSport IS350 secured the championship title with only a three point gap, by finishing the rather quiet but strained race in third, as everybody watched the outcome of the season-long battle.

As a final result, all of the top four drivers in the GT300 class drivers' point standings earned their positions using ADVAN tires and the top three teams in the championship, led by Racing Project Bandoh which runs WedsSport IS350, were all relying on ADVAN tires. This was another proof of the ADVAN's overwhelming dominance in the class.

　[Result :3rd in the GT300 class]
"The feeling that came first when we secured the title was relief. I expressed my mind in words and said 'We will definitely pursue the title!' but, to be honest, I wasn't so sure about that.
"I've known Kataoka, my partner this year, for a long time. And I was able to understand how he felt to step down from the GT500 car to drive the lesser GT300 car, because I had the same experience, so I was determined to aim for the championship with him since the day we became partners.
"I am now very much familiar with ADVAN tires and our IS350 became well developed in this second season for the car. On top of this, all the team members were more determined to win the title, as Kataoka joined the team. I think his arrival paved the way for the championship."