All Japan Grand Touring Car Championship

All Japan Grand Touring Car Championship

Category	Gran Turismo
Country	Japan
Inaugural season	1993
Folded	2004
Last Drivers' champion	GT500: Satoshi Motoyama Richard Lyons GT300: Tetsuya Yamano Hiroyuki Yagi
Last Makes' champion	GT500: Nissan GT300: Honda
Last Teams' champion	GT500: Nismo Xanavi/Motul Pitwork GT300: M-TEC
Official website	Super GT.net

All Japan Grand Touring Car Championship is a grand touring car racing series that began in 1993. Originally titled as the Zen Nihon GT Senshuken (全日本GT選手権), generally referred to as either the JGTC the series was renamed to Super GT in 2005. It was the top level of sports car racing in Japan.

The series was sanctioned by the Japan Automobile Federation (JAF) and ran by the GT Association (GTA). Autobacs has served as the title sponsor of the series since 1998.

History[]

The JGTC (Japanese Grand Touring Championship)^[1] was established in 1993^[2][3] by the  [ja] (JAF) via its subsidiary company the GTA (GT Association), replacing the defunct All Japan Sports Prototype Championship for Group C cars and the Japanese Touring Car Championship for Group A touring cars, which instead would adopt the supertouring formula. Seeking to prevent the spiraling budgets and one-team/make domination of both series, JGTC imposed strict limits on power, and heavy weight penalties on race winners in an openly stated objective to keep on-track action close with an emphasis on keeping fans happy.

2003 Xanavi nismo GT-R (R34).

In its first season, the JGTC grid mostly consisted of  [ja] cars, with the only genuine JGTC cars being a Nismo-entered Nissan Skyline GT-R and Nissan Silvia S13, of which the GT-R was a modified AWD Group A car. An exception was the first race of the season, which was also an exhibition race of the IMSA GT Championship, and therefore saw a contingent of GTS and GTU cars from the American series join the field. The 1000 km Suzuka also saw a greater variety of competitors, with Group C prototypes, Group N touring cars, and GT cars from Europe and IMSA all joining the field.

For the following season, the series would undergo a rules overhaul, creating a class for the FIA's GT1 category, and another for the GT2 category. The JSS series would altogether dissolve into the latter category. What made the series more significant was that compared to other racing series, JGTC teams at the time had the freedom to enter whichever cars they preferred, even if it was the JSS cars from the inaugural season or spaceframe racers from the IMSA GTS class. However, the Group C prototypes, whilst easily showing dominant form, were banned from the series from the 1995 season onwards.

By the end of the 1995 season, as the cost of obtaining and running a GT1 car had dramatically increased, the JGTC would go through another rules overhaul in order to lower costs and avoid the fate of the JSPC series it had replaced. The newly formed GT500 and GT300 regulations were adopted, which capped cars with air restrictors depending on their weight and power. While the regulations would continuously evolve, the GT500 and GT300 classes continue to form the top level of Japanese sports car racing today.

The cars[]

The cars are divided into two groups; GT300 and GT500. The names of the categories derive from their traditional maximum horsepower limit - in the early years of the series, GT500 cars would have no more than 500 horsepower, GT300 cars would max out at around 300 hp. However, the current generation of GT500 powerplants produce in excess of 600 horsepower. Meanwhile, in present-day GT300, the horsepower range varies from around 400 to just over 550 horsepower; however, GT300 cars have far less downforce than their GT500 counterparts.

In both groups, the car number is assigned to the team, in which each team is allowed to choose whichever number they want as long as the number isn't already used by any other team. The number assigned to each team is permanent, and may only change hands when the team exits the series. In addition, only defending team champions are allowed to use number 0 (for GT300 champions) and 1 (for GT500 champions), although it isn't mandatory for defending champions to use those numbers.

For easy identification, GT500 cars run white headlight covers, windshield decals, and number panels, while GT300 cars run yellow versions of those items.

GT500[]

Controversies[]

1998 JGTC Fuji incident[]

Japanese driver Tetsuya Ota is notable for surviving a fiery multi-car pileup he was involved in during a JGTC race at Fuji Speedway on May 3, 1998. The accident was initially caused by an oversaturated track. Ota then aquaplaned and left the track which put him directly into an already crashed Porsche. At the time of the accident, the Ferrari Ota was driving had a full cell of fuel which was ignited by the impact. Ota was severely injured due to third-degree burns on a good percentage of his body which may have been prevented if JGTC, at the time, had sufficient emergency response. Ota filed a lawsuit against the racing club plus organizers for negligence and won the sum of ¥90 million (US$800,000).

Death of Shingo Tachi[]

Although there are presently no fatalities during a JGTC or Super GT race meeting, Shingo Tachi, the 1998 GT300 champion, was killed during a testing accident in TI Circuit Aida on March 11, 1999. Tachi's GT500 Toyota Supra, belonging to Team LeMans, suffered a technical failure and was unable to slow down for the first corner; Tachi crashed into the tyre wall at unabated speed, suffering massive chest injuries from the steering wheel and was pronounced dead an hour later.^[4]

Champions[]

Masahiko Kageyama and Morio Nitta are tied for the record of most drivers championship won in GT1/GT300 class with three. Masahiko Kageyama was the first driver to win multiple championship as well as the sport's first two-time and three-time champion, all of them won consecutively.

Season	Category	Drivers' Championship			Teams' Championship
		Driver(s)	Car		Team	Car
1993	GT	Masahiko Kageyama	Nissan Skyline GT-R R32		not awarded
1994	GT1	Masahiko Kageyama	Nissan Skyline GT-R R32		Calsonic Hoshino Racing	Nissan Skyline GT-R R32
	GT2	Sakae Obata	Porsche 964 Carrera RS		Kegani Racing	Porsche 964 Carrera RS
1995	GT1	Masahiko Kageyama	Nissan Skyline GT-R R33		Team Taisan	Porsche 911 GT2
	GT2	Kaoru Hoshino Yoshimi Ishibashi	Nissan Skyline GTS-R		Calsonic Impul	Nissan Skyline GTS-R
1996	GT500	David Brabham John Nielsen	McLaren F1 GTR-BMW		Team Lark	McLaren F1 GTR-BMW
	GT300	Keiichi Suzuki Morio Nitta	Porsche Carrera RSR		Team Taisan Jr.	Porsche 964 Carrera RSR
1997	GT500	Pedro de la Rosa Michael Krumm	Toyota Supra		Toyota Castrol Team TOM'S	Toyota Supra
	GT300	Hideo Fukuyama Manabu Orido	Nissan Silvia S14		RS-R Racing Team with Bandoh	Nissan Silvia S14
1998	GT500	Érik Comas Masami Kageyama	Nissan Skyline GT-R R33		Pennzoil NISMO	Nissan Skyline GT-R R33
	GT300	Keiichi Suzuki Shingo Tachi	Toyota MR2		Team Taisan Jr. with Tsuchiya	Toyota MR2
1999	GT500	Érik Comas	Nissan Skyline GT-R R34		Toyota Castrol Team TOM'S	Toyota Supra
	GT300	Morio Nitta	Toyota MR2		Momocorse Racing with Tsuchiya	Toyota MR2
2000	GT500	Ryo Michigami	Honda NSX		Mugen × Dome Project	Honda NSX
	GT300	Hideo Fukuyama	Porsche 996 GT3R		Team Taisan Advan	Porsche 996 GT3R
2001	GT500	Hironori Takeuchi Yuji Tachikawa	Toyota Supra		Nismo Hiroto/Xanavi	Nissan Skyline GT-R R34
	GT300	Nobuyuki Oyagi Takayuki Aoki	Nissan Silvia S15		Team Taisan Advan	Porsche 911 GT3R
2002	GT500	Juichi Wakisaka Akira Iida	Toyota Supra		Mugen × Dome Project	Honda NSX
	GT300	Morio Nitta Shinichi Takagi	Toyota MR-S		Team Taisan Advan	Porsche 911 GT3R
2003	GT500	Satoshi Motoyama Michael Krumm	Nissan Skyline GT-R R34		Xanavi Nismo	Nissan Skyline GT-R R34
	GT300	Mitsuhiro Kinoshita Masataka Yanagida	Nissan Fairlady Z Z33		Team Taisan Advan	Chrysler Viper GTS-R Porsche 911 GT3R
2004	GT500	Satoshi Motoyama Richard Lyons	Nissan Fairlady Z Z33		Nismo Xanavi/Motul Pitwork	Nissan Fairlady Z Z33
	GT300	Tetsuya Yamano Hiroyuki Yagi	Honda NSX		M-TEC	Honda NSX

References[]

External links[]

• Super GT website (in English and Japanese)