1998 Japanese Touring Car Championship

The 1998 Japanese Touring Car Championship was the 14th edition of the series. It began at Fuji Speedway on 5 April and finished after seven events, also at Fuji Speedway on 8 November. The championship was won for the second time by Masanori Sekiya, driving for Toyota Team TOM's.^[1][2][3]

Teams & Drivers[]

Team Car No. Drivers Rounds Object T Toyota Corona EXiV 11 Tatsuya Tanigawa 1 Akihiko Nakaya 3-7 Racing Project Bandoh Toyota Corona EXiV 19 Katsutomo Kaneishi All Tsuchiya Engineering Toyota Corona EXiV 24 Takeshi Tsuchiya All Toyota Chaser 25 Keiichi Tsuchiya All Toyota Team TOM's Toyota Chaser 36 Kelvin Burt All 37 Masanori Sekiya All Toyota Team Cerumo Toyota Chaser 38 Yuji Tachikawa All 39 Hironori Takeuchi All SYMS Racing Subaru Impreza Sport Wagon 66 Hideshi Matsuda 1 Sebastian Martino 2-3 Dandelion Racing Toyota Corona EXiV 68 Ruben Derfler All

Calendar[]

Round		Circuit	Date	Pole Position	Fastest Lap	Winning driver	Winning team
1	R1	Fuji Speedway, Shizuoka	5 April	Katsutomo Kaneishi	Masanori Sekiya	Hironori Takeuchi	Toyota Team Cerumo
	R2				Katsutomo Kaneishi	Katsutomo Kaneishi	Racing Project Bandoh
2	R3	Twin Ring Motegi, Tochigi	10 May	Masanori Sekiya	Hironori Takeuchi	Masanori Sekiya	Toyota Team TOM's
3	R4	Sportsland SUGO, Miyagi	24 May	Masanori Sekiya	Masanori Sekiya	Masanori Sekiya	Toyota Team TOM's
	R5				Kelvin Burt	Kelvin Burt	Toyota Team TOM's
4	R6	Suzuka Circuit, Mie	21 June	Hironori Takeuchi	Masanori Sekiya	Katsutomo Kaneishi	Racing Project Bandoh
	R7				Kelvin Burt	Masanori Sekiya	Toyota Team TOM's
5	R8	Mine Central Circuit, Yamaguchi	26 July	Masanori Sekiya	Masanori Sekiya	Masanori Sekiya	Toyota Team TOM's
	R9				Yuji Tachikawa	Masanori Sekiya	Toyota Team TOM's
6	R10	TI Circuit Aida, Okayama	16 August	Masanori Sekiya	Katsutomo Kaneishi	Masanori Sekiya	Toyota Team TOM's
7	R11	Fuji Speedway, Shizuoka	8 November	Katsutomo Kaneishi	Katsutomo Kaneishi	Katsutomo Kaneishi	Racing Project Bandoh

Championship Standings[]

Pos Driver FUJ MOT SUG SUZ MIN AID FUJ Pts 1 Masanori Sekiya 8 2 1 1 3 4 1 1 1 1 7 128 2 Katsutomo Kaneishi Ret 1 6 3 Ret 1 2 3 2 Ret 1 108 3 Hironori Takeuchi 1 6 4 2 2 3 3 2 Ret 7 5 100 4 Yuji Tachikawa 7 3 2 6 4 2 Ret 5 3 3 4 100 5 Kelvin Burt 6 4 5 4 1 Ret Ret 9 4 2 Ret 86 6 Takeshi Tsuchiya 2 5 3 Ret 7 5 5 4 Ret 5 Ret 78 7 Keiichi Tsuchiya 3 8 7 5 6 Ret 4 8 5 4 3 63 8 Ruben Derfler 4 Ret 8 Ret 5 6 Ret 6 6 5 2 62 9 Akihiko Nakaya Ret Ret Ret 6 7 Ret 8 6 32 10 Tatsuya Tanigawa 5 7 14 11 Hideshi Matsuda 9 9 5 12 Sebastian Martino 9 DNS DNS 4 Pos Driver FUJ MOT SUG SUZ MIN AID FUJ Pts

Colour Result Gold Winner Silver 2nd place Bronze 3rd place Green Points finish Blue Non-points finish Non-classified finish (NC) Purple Retired (Ret) Red Did not qualify (DNQ) Did not pre-qualify (DNPQ) Black Disqualified (DSQ) White Did not start (DNS) Withdrew (WD) Race cancelled (C) Blank Did not practice (DNP) Did not arrive (DNA) Excluded (EX) Bold - Pole Italics - Fastest lap

References[]