2016 Japanese Super GT

[hvr777]

[OT]

Here is the video of Lotus Evora MC GT300 and Lotus Evora 400 at MT Hakone Hillclimb event. While Hiroki Katoh drove the GT300 car, Hiroki Yoshimoto (#60 Syntium LMCorsa RC F) drove the Evora 400.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4i8hGIImz3w

[Japanese Samurai]

Autosport magazine SGT silly season report

#1 NISMO: Matsuda/ Quintarelli
#6 LeMans: Oshima/ Caldarelli?/ Kunimoto?
#8 ARTA: Matsuura?/ Nojiri?/ Kobayashi?
#12 IMPUL: Yasuda/ Oliveira
#15 Dorago: Kogure/ Turvey?
#17 REAL: Tsukakoshi/ Mutoh?/ Kaneishi?
#19 Bandoh: Wakisaka?/ Sekiguchi?/ Kunimoto?
#24 Kondo: Sasaki/ Yanagida?
#36 Tom's: Ito?/ Rossiter
#37 Tom's: Hirakawa?/ Caldarelli?/ Cassidy?
#38 Cerumo: Tachikawa/ Ishiura
#39 SARD: Hirate?/ Kovalainen?
#46 MOLA: Motoyama/ Chiyo?
#64 Nakajima: Nakajima/ Baguette?
#100 Kunimitsu: Yamamoto/ Izawa

*There is a rumor that Honda will quit the hybrid system of NSX-GT.

[rich07]

Originally Posted by hvr777

[OT]

Here is the video of Lotus Evora MC GT300 and Lotus Evora 400 at MT Hakone Hillclimb event. While Hiroki Katoh drove the GT300 car, Hiroki Yoshimoto (#60 Syntium LMCorsa RC F) drove the Evora 400.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4i8hGIImz3w

Thanks for the vid, that was good especially for the ears

[MagVanisher]

If the rumor that Honda will ditch their hybrid system to their NSX GT500 car was true, I'll be saddened by it!

Sure that they'll become competitive in the next season without it, but it's a shame that the NSX lost what is relevant to the road car.

[Japanese Samurai]

Autosport magazine SGT silly season report 2 (GT300)

GT300 entry list prediction
#0 Gainer: GTR GT3: Couto/ Tomita
#2 Cars Tokai: Lotus Evora: Takahashi/ Katoh
#3 NDDP: GTR GT3: Hoshino/ Takaboshi?
#4 GSR&Ukyo: AMG GT3: Taniguchi/ Kataoka
#5 MACH: 488GT3 or 86MC: Tamanaka/ Mitsuyama?
#7 Studie: M6GT3: Jorg Muller/ Ara
#9 Pacific: MP4-12C GT3?: Shirasaka?/ Sakaguchi?
#11 Gainer: AMG GT3: Hiranaka/ Wirdheim
#18 UpGarage: 86MC: Nakayama/ Marko Asmer?/ Yuji Ide?/ Sho Tsuboi?/ Tadasuke Makino?
#21 Hitotsuyama: R8LMS: Lyons/ Fujii
#22 R'Qs: SLS GT3: Wada/ Jonai
#25 Tsuchiya: 86MC: Tsuchiya/ Matsui/ Makino?/ Tsuboi?
#30 apr: Prius GT: Sasaki/ Nagai
#31 apr: Prius GT: Saga/ Nakayama
#33 KTR: 911 GT3R: Jorg Bergmeister/ Yuya Sakamoto?/ Kenta Yamashita?
#47 DIJON: GTR GT3? Benz? Audi?: Rintaro Kubo?
#48 DIJON: GTR GT3: Dr. Takamori/ Katsuki Tanaka
#50 Arnage: SLS GT3: ?
#51 LM Corsa: Z4GT3 or RCF GT3: Morio Nitta/ Shigekazu Wakisaka?/ Toyota Young driver?
#55 ARTA: M6GT3?: Shinichi Takagi/ Takashi Kobayashi?
#60 LM Corsa: RCF GT3: Akira Iida/ Hiroki Yoshimoto
#61 R&D Sport: BRZ GT300: Iguchi/ Yamauchi
#65 LEON: AMG GT3: Haruki Kurosawa/ Naoya Gamou
#77 Direction: Huracan GT3: Naoki Yokomizo/ Lamborghini factory driver
#78? Direction with Shift: Huracan GT3: Kyosuke Mineo/ foreign driver?
#87 JLOC: Huracan GT3: Takayuki Aoki/ Koji Yamanishi?/ Yoshitaka Kuroda?
#88 JLOC: Huracan GT3: Manabu Orido/ Kazutaka Hiramine?/ Kimiya Sato?/ Shinya Hosokawa?
#111 Rn-Sport: AMG GT3: Masayuki Ueda/ Kazuya Tsuruta?/ Yusaku Shibata?
#360 TOMEI Sport: GTR GT3: Hiroki Yoshida/ Atsushi Tanaka

*No name of Gulf Racing Japan.

[MagVanisher]

Hmm, seems that Pacific Racing Team's participation is big question mark after crashing their McLaren MP4-12C GT3 onto the S-Road GT-R GT500 car.

Maybe they should focus on competitive drifting instead of sports car racing. Panzer vor!

[hvr777]

Originally Posted by MagVanisher

@hvr777
I was wondering that too if Team apr have one or two spare RV8K engines should the first one got busted?

Well, I think the amount of spare parts and engines are still sufficient for apr to compete at least for this season. Initially I thought the new Prius GT300 will be equipped with RI4A (2000cc I-4) engine, just like RV8J for IS350 & RV8K for Prius.

Anyway, still a unique choice for apr Racing, the team decided to use tyres from different makers (YH & BS) for each cars.

[hvr777]

Originally Posted by MagVanisher

If the rumor that Honda will ditch their hybrid system to their NSX GT500 car was true, I'll be saddened by it!

Sure that they'll become competitive in the next season without it, but it's a shame that the NSX lost what is relevant to the road car.

Although it'll be less relevant to its roadgoing version, for the sake of NSX's competitiveness, hopefully the hybrid system removal will be fruitful for this season.

In my opinion, the new NSX has too much gimmick (4WD and its hybrid system) which makes the car bit overweight.

[TF110]

Being honest, the gt500 NSX runs a turbo 4, the road car is twin turbo V6. The gt500 car losing it's hybrid to me isn't that big of a deal since it's marginal anyway.

[MagVanisher]

Speaking of GT500, if the JAF/GTA are keen on using the GT3 platform, they should take notes on IMSA on converting a GT3 car into GTE (GTLM).

[TF110]

Autosport reporting the class one regs are still on. Even though DTM are delaying their move to the turbo engines.

[bckf]

Originally Posted by TF110

Autosport reporting the class one regs are still on. Even though DTM are delaying their move to the turbo engines.

But Mercedes said they had put their development on halt and were interested in discussing cheaper alternatives.
I think this is just DTM being politically correct, because I'll never believe they rank a joint race with a still obscure Japanese series higher than pleasing one of the three big German manufacturers on their agenda.
What I think they'll do is, they'll probably go for some kind of turbo engine as per the plans, but they'll end up focusing on cost cutting rather than the remarkably high efficiency and horsepower of GT500 engines.
Really, those things wouldn't look bad on a new LMP1-H car and don't look too cheap either, so I guess one should give DTM a very good reason for not looking at some less expensive option, especially if you consider they've done "just fine" with only 500 hp from old V8s.

[TF110]

The Japanese want to run outside Japan, but the Germans seem fine with being 'local'.

[J Jay]

Originally Posted by TF110

The Japanese want to run outside Japan, but the Germans seem fine with being 'local'.

I'm not sure if they are truly fine with staying as a national series, but it's the cheapest option in the short term so that's how things will stay for now.

This all kicked off when the Germans wanted to recoup some of the money they were haemorrhaging on their cars by selling them to Japan, with the promise of a joint series moving forward. Now that they realize how much they would have to spend to get their cars on par with GT500 they aren't so keen.

[MagVanisher]

@J Jay
In my opinion, the Germans shouldn't have develop their next-generation DTM car and sell it to the Japanese in the first place. That way, they won't be losing money on staging boring races every year.

But it's already happened and now DTM organizers are feeling how expensive to run the series when you have 3 German manufacturers involved. Personally, they should fold DTM as it's becoming dull every season...

[J Jay]

Originally Posted by MagVanisher

@J Jay
In my opinion, the Germans shouldn't have develop their next-generation DTM car and sell it to the Japanese in the first place. That way, they won't be losing money on staging boring races every year.

But it's already happened and now DTM organizers are feeling how expensive to run the series when you have 3 German manufacturers involved. Personally, they should fold DTM as it's becoming dull every season...

I agree, a lot more thought should have been put into the future of DTM at the time, because there were already concerns about the quality of racing and the resulting impact on audiences. But now they are caught in a trap where no manufacturer can just up sticks and leave...

... which is also what was happening in Japan in the run-up to adopting the DTM regulations. Let's not forget that the Japanese factories also wanted to drastically reduce costs just like their German counterparts. Unfortunately that's not quite come to pass, for various reasons (not least the shoddy tubs).

[Japanese Samurai]

It seems that the new R8 LMS was delivered to Team Hitotsuyama.
https://www.facebook.com/hitotsuyama...5800945841727/

[Japanese Samurai]

Team Gainer sold its SLS GT3 to a racing team of Sapporo.
http://www.gainer.asia/teamblog/743

[MagVanisher]

@Japanese Samurai
I wonder if Team Gainer are planning to buy another Nissan GT-R GT3 car after selling their SLS GT3 to a local team from Hokkaido? Speaking of Hokkaido, will that team race in Super GT or Super Taikyu?

Wait, I'm becoming like AkioAsakura95!

@TF110
While the Class One regulations and implementation are still on-going, I feel that it'll fail eventually. Maybe JAF/GTA should put GTE cars to GT500 class together with DTM-based prototypes.

@J Jay
While the Japanese are cost-cutting their top class by adapting the DTM regulations, let's not forget that they did better on making DTM-based cars better!

Still, the problem is that using the cars in the GT500 class would raise the costs on operating it in the future.

[hvr777]

Originally Posted by Japanese Samurai

Team Gainer sold its SLS GT3 to a racing team of Sapporo.
http://www.gainer.asia/teamblog/743

Not sure if it's just me or not. Talking about the #11 Gainer SLS or other previous #11 Gainer cars, before Gainer's drivers like Tetsuya Tanaka or Katsuyuki Hiranaka achieved GT300 drivers' title (the team already at title contention for several times), another stronger force came from the same team and ironically the title was achieved by all-new lineup at #10 Gainer GT-R.

Well, whatever the next car for the #11, I hope the next #11 car will have equal performance with its #0 sister car.

[MagVanisher]

@hvr777
Well, why not have Team Gainer buy another Nissan GT-R GT3 as their next car for #11.

If Team Gainer get consistent result with the #10 car for 2016, it'll do the same with the #11.

[TF110]

I wonder how fast say, the new Ford GT(E/LM) would be if it was 1100kg and had 'Super GT' tires? It'll be interesting to see what the lap times and top speed will be at Fuji for the WEC GTE cars. I figure in qualifying they should be knocking on the door of 1:36's. That's still a big difference between them and GT500 and not much faster than gt300.

[Beryl]

Originally Posted by MagVanisher

@Japanese Samurai
I wonder if Team Gainer are planning to buy another Nissan GT-R GT3 car after selling their SLS GT3 to a local team from Hokkaido?

Autosport Japan's silly season predictions imply that Gainer has purchased AMG GTs to replace the #11 and #111 SLSs in 2016.

[MagVanisher]

Originally Posted by Beryl

Autosport Japan's silly season predictions imply that Gainer has purchased AMG GTs to replace the #11 and #111 SLSs in 2016.

*looks at previous posts*

You're right, Team Gainer are planning to buy the AMG GT as their #11 car. Then again, it's just speculation where they might buy another GT-R instead of fielding two different cars.

[TF110]

Did a little research and it seems that even three year old Super GT times are faster at Sepang than today's Asian LM Series cars. By a good 3 seconds per lap in qualifying!