2014 Japanese Super GT

[Japanese Samurai]

That is because they are not (full) season entry teams.
They are wild card participation teams.

[TF110]

I really thought this race was good. The track has nameless corners, but it was an eventful race. Nakajima put in a strong closer, hes getting better and better imo.

[somebodysb2]

Shame the Porsche had puncture whilst leading..with Imperatori's pace they were on track to winning the thing.

[carbsmith]

Originally Posted by Japanese Samurai

i-mobile AAS Porsche's Michelin tires are overseas GT3 racing tires.
http://as-web.jp/news/info.php?c_id=2&no=60436#page2

This really surprised me. Obviously they were running with no penalty weight and the Otonokizaka 911 has been really quick with the #1 driver in it sometimes this year but I think the assumption was that because GT300 is a sprint racing series with open tire competition and most other GT3 series are single tire and/or endurance racing series that Super GT had much more aggressive and thus significantly quicker tires.

That a Michelin customer tire is more than competitive on raw pace is pretty impressive.

[TF110]

Michelin has great tires. I agree a lot of the performance could be the minimal ballast though.

[AkioAsakura95]

Big news:

BMW Motorsport is officially announced that M6 GT3 will replace the BMW Z4 GT3 in 2016 the engine that used of M6 GT3 is powered by a 4.4-liter BMW M Twin Power Turbo 8-cylinder petrol engine, which is similar to the production model but has been modified for racing and BMW will start taking orders for the M6 GT3 in 2015 and it is expected to debut in the BMW Sports Trophy in 2016.

http://www.bmw-motorsport.com/en/new...mw_m6_gt3.html

http://as-web.jp/news/info.php?c_id=2&no=60514

[AkioAsakura95]

Big news here:

DIJON RACING (#48) might participating 2 cars at the final round Motegi!!!

http://as-web.jp/news/info.php?c_id=2&no=60575

[Japanese Samurai]

The businessman last year signed a two-year, 120 million baht contract to bring Japan's Super GT series to the race course.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/learning/...sports-capital

[TF110]

Any attendance numbers for Thailand?

[Deleted]

Originally Posted by TF110

Any attendance numbers for Thailand?

Here you go

SAT 47,597
SUN 78,168
TOTAL 122,768

Great (and accurate ) numbers! Let's see AsLMS repeating this on their standalone later on, lucky if they get 1000 including track and series personel

Anyway finally got around watching it. Not only did the crowd look great in those numbers but also on on screen - even if the track itself was about as interesting as watching election candidate discussions. But with all the safety nonsense of the circuit itself it was kinda funny to see race control not doing anything with relatively big chunks of off-line debris in multiple places no objections from me though!

The new 86 looked gorgeous in motion.

You know while everything else is so professional and strict I've been spotting some disorganized pit work in this series and again here. Particularly when the #8 NSX came with destroyed tires and damaged body, the guys were running around like headless chickens before reacting.

[TF110]

I saw those numbers on a translated site and wasnt sure if real. The track just needs some scenery. Some added palm trees would help.

[Deleted]

I took those figures from twitter, and on the link Akio provided for Dijon's 2 possible cars it claims attendance of 131,191 for three days (Friday included) so I think we can say these are somewhat reliable. Even if seeing such exact numbers in the world of "Silverstone counting" is rather weird

I guess all blandness withstanding the venue surroundings reminded Thailand a bit more than say Buddh does of India or Ordos does of China/Mongolia/whatever it's supposed to present... and no disgusting smog.

GT500s passing 300 traffic did pretty bold moves for this one, which I guess is what the nature of these forgiving new tracks encourages.

Anyway, Motegi finale should be good

[Japanese Samurai]

WEIDER MODULO DOME RACING announces that Takuya Izawa substitutes as a driver of Weider Modulo DOME Racing for Motegi 300km race.
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.p...62448577207190

[TheNo1F1Fan]

Originally Posted by Japanese Samurai

WEIDER MODULO DOME RACING announces that Takuya Izawa substitutes as a driver of Weider Modulo DOME Racing for Motegi 300km race.
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.p...62448577207190

Damn, I thought it was going to be Vernay.

[Deleted]

So the attendance figures (from Japanese sources) between the FIM WEC and SGT weekends

Suzuka 8 hours - 111,000 (weekend)
Suzuka 1000km - 61,000 (weekend, down 1,500 from last year)

How does international motorcycle endurace race at Suzuka get 50,000 more than shorter popular domestic series? I mean obviously bikes are bigger draw than sportscars and I read that in it's hayday that event got 160,000, but still.

Also, Buriram/Chang/whatever looks to have double the amount of weekend visitors of the Super GT marquee event! I grant that debut events tend to get bigger initial crowds - especially in a country without much motorsport activity - before they initially settle down. But again - it's still interesting

[Monkey Head]

Originally Posted by TheNo1F1Fan

Damn, I thought it was going to be Vernay.

of course won't be him,he will driving Bentley's GT car for Macau GT Cup same day

[rich07]

Was reading an old tuner magazine today and they had an article on HKS Mercedes CLK coupe that they entered in GT500 in the early to mid 2000s with little success. Anyone know what happened to the car?

[hondafan37]

Originally Posted by rich07

Was reading an old tuner magazine today and they had an article on HKS Mercedes CLK coupe that they entered in GT500 in the early to mid 2000s with little success. Anyone know what happened to the car?

http://www.speedhunters.com/2009/03/...llection_pt_2/
http://originalgaijin.wordpress.com/...enz-clk-gt500/
http://www.motorsportretro.com/2014/01/jgtc-cars/

[Deleted]

Can't exactly call that thing a beauty, I think I rather ever prefer the DTM taxi cab Merc.

[rich07]

Originally Posted by hondafan37

http://www.speedhunters.com/2009/03/...llection_pt_2/

http://originalgaijin.wordpress.com/...enz-clk-gt500/

http://www.motorsportretro.com/2014/01/jgtc-cars/

Many thanks, it appears HKS still have the car but it hasn't seen a racetrack for some time.

Originally Posted by Chiana

Can't exactly call that thing a beauty, I think I rather ever prefer the DTM taxi cab Merc.

I liked it because of the HKS paint scheme, it looked really tough and it was different, sure HKS were never going to trouble the factory teams but they were there anyway. Back in those days you had random entries in the top class not just the big three that we have now. The HKS Mercedes, the McLarens, Nomad 550 etc

[Deleted]

Yeah and they used to have (both generations of) GT1 cars in GT500 periodically.

[hondafan37]

This is the list of GT 500 cars.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_GT

[Deleted]

Did some further research into weekend (Sat+Sun except for non champ Fuji sprint) attendance figures from last few years and collected, here ya go

Chang 2014 RD7 122,768
Suzuka 2014 RD6 61,000
Fuji II 2014 RD5 45,000
Sugo 2014 R4 37,000
Autopolis 2014 RD3 38,200
Fuji I 2014 RD2 89,400
Okayama 2014 RD1 27,000

Fuji JAF GP 2013 RDX 62,000
Motegi 2013 RD8 44,500
Autopolis 2013 RD7 33,700
Asian Le Mans Series / GT300 Fuji 2013 RDX 13,600
Fuji II 2013 RD6 52,300
Suzuka 2013 RD5 56,500
Sugo 2013 RD4 36,000
Sepang 2013 RD3 108,000
Fuji I 2013 RD2 80,100
Okayama 2013 RD1 24,000

Fuji JAF GP 2012 RDX 60,300
Motegi 2012 RD8 39,500
Autopolis 2012 RD7 32,300
Fuji II 2012 RD6 52,000
Suzuka 2012 RD5 60,500
Sugo 2012 RD4 37,000
Sepang 2012 RD3 ???
Fuji I 2012 RD2 83,000
Okayama 2012 RD1 24,100

Could go further down to 2011 and beyond but the info gets more sparsed and there are more gaps.

Anyway what we can see here
- International events get huge exposure
- Early Summer Fuji round is the most popular domestic event and gets much better crowds than late summer / autumn event
- Suzuka might be season's higlight in terms of prestige but "only" second or third most attended domestic event
- Okayama is the lowest attended event (anything to do with the capacity?)
- Autopolis has benefitted from the date switch
- Otherwise pretty steady % changes everywhere

[The IC]

Okayama (T1 Aida) is out in the middle of nowhere, which leads to the lower numbers...F1 stopped holding the Pacific GP there after only 2 years for that reason

[carbsmith]

None of them are particularly anywhere.

Fuji is by far the closest to the largest population centers, probably followed by Suzuka. Motegi and Sugo are both up north towards the areas worst hit by the Tohoku earthquake/tsunami where there's smaller cities. Okayama is down on the southwest part of the largest island. Autopolis is off on the southernmost of the main islands.

But pretty much all these tracks are out in the boonies on a mountain. Okayama's actual municipality (Mimasaka) is the largest besides Suzuka being considered in Suzuka proper.