ADVAN / MOTOR SPORTS [Japanese SUPER GT Series 2010 / About SUPER GT]

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The Super GT series enters its sixth season this year since its inception in 2005. It has been tremendously popular and more than 450 thousand people visited the Super GT race events last year and it's fair to say that the series is by far the most attractive category in Japanese motor sport scene. Among its popular fixtures, the jewels in the crown are the Fuji round during the Golden Week holidays in May and the long distance race at Suzuka Circuit in the end of summer vacation in August.

This year's series consist of eight rounds. It is a pity that Autopolis in Kyushu was dropped from the calendar, but the Super GT visits all other international race tracks in mainland Japan, such as Fuji, Suzuka, Okayama, Sugo and Motegi. In addition to them, the Malaysian round at Sepang Circuit keeps its slot in June, which has a long tradition since the days of the preceding Japanese GT Championship series.

The most notable new addition to the 2010 calender is a special round, "Super GT & Formula Nippon Fuji Sprint Cup 2010", held at Fuji in November after the championship is concluded in late October. This is a collaboration of Super GT and Formula Nippon, the pinnacles of touring car and formula races in Japan, and each will have approximately 100km long sprint race in one event, which is a fresh approach.

In such a high profile race series, the ADVAN equipped teams are expected to perform even better than last year. Looking back the inaugural 2005 season of the Super GT series, ADVAN shod cars won both GT500 and GT300 classes in the very first race of the reborn series at Okayama International Circuit.

Kondo Racing enters a Nissan GT-R in GT500 class again. The team hired Hironobu Yasuda to partner with the retained ace driver, J.P.de Oliveira. It is still fresh in our minds that the team overwhelmingly scored their first win in homeland in the rainy season opener and contended the title last year. For the 2010 season, many expect their strong showing towards the long-cherished championship title.

　 [ADVAN TIRE INFORMATION]

In 2009, the ADVAN equipped GT300 class contenders dominated the top four places of the drivers' championship and seven places out of top ten of the point standings. Two teams among them fought the title until the final round and Racing Project Bandoh eventually won it. It looks almost certain that the GT300 class championship is to be contended between the reigning champion and other ADVAN shod teams which are aiming to snatch the title crown.

The ADVAN racing tire has been an established top performer in the Super GT series. By making continuous progress, ADVAN's superior performance fully shines in this most notable grand touring car race series in Japan.

The Super GT series has two classes, the GT500 for the cars with around 500 hp motors and the GT300 for the cars with lesser motors in the region of 300 hp. The chassis must comply with the Japan Automobile Federation's competition car regulations for Grand Touring Cars - JAF-GT500 and JAF GT300. The regulations were substantially modified in 2009 for cutting the cost and equalizing the performance between different cars.

In the current regulations, the engines for GT500, in principle, must be normally aspirated V8 and their displacement must be less than 3400cc, which means they share the same basics with the power unit for Formula Nippon. The chassis must have FR (front-engined and rear wheel drive) layout with standardized wheelbase size to even out any performance gap due to the original sizes of production cars.
　
　

GT500 Class

The three Japanese car manufacturers are major players in the GT500 and all of their cars are driven by leading professional drivers. The head-to-head racing between them is naturally in the highest level, which lives up to the position of the series as the pinnacle of touring car races in Japan.

The cars are designed and built to be pure racing machines and thoroughly sorted out in all aspects such as weight reduction and aerodynamics. Therefore, the speed and agility belongs to another dimension, compared with production car based racers. The GT500 car is often described as "a formula car in a touring car's skin" and is one of the world's leading racing machines in terms of its level of performance and technology.

GT300 Class

On the other hand, the GT300 class is a battle field for a wide variety of cars. Although the ultimate speed is lower because of their 300 hp motors, the racing itself is no less exciting and strong than that of the GT500 cars.

Its line-up looks so interesting. There are familiar Japanese cars, such as Lexus IS which is the reigning champion car, Corolla Axio, Fairlady Z and Legacy B4, all of which aren't uncommon to find on streets, while you will also see exotic super cars, such as Ferrari, Porsche and Aston Martin, as well as a few examples of specialty models like Vemac or Shiden.

As these cars have different characteristics, the race will be more enjoyable for you if you analyze teams' different strategies. And a range of drivers, young guns and veterans with different carrier backgrounds, compete with each other. By checking their profiles, you may pick your favorite teams and drivers, then you will become hotter when you watch the races.