Suzuka GT 2018-05-19 - TheSportsDB.com

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Event
Suzuka GT

Date
Sat 19th May 2018 (UTC)

Timestamp

Time

00:00:00 UTC

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League
Super GT series

Season
2018

Round
3

Status

Location
Suzuka Circuit

Video Highlights

Description

The Summer Endurance Race is an annual endurance race currently held for ten hours but at times has been a 500km, 700km, or 1000km endurance race, for sports cars held at the Suzuka Circuit.

The race, as a 1000km race, was previously part of the All Japan Sports Prototype Championship, the forerunner to Super GT, and later hosted a round of the 1992 World Sportscar Championship before these series were cancelled. After that the race became part of many different series, including the BPR Global GT Series from 1994 to 1996, the FIA GT Championship from 1997 to 1998, and the Super Taikyu endurance series. In 2006, the race was added to the Super GT calendar for the first time. Previously, the race was open to JGTC/Super GT cars, but only a handful of competitors from the Super GT championship took part. For 2018, the race moves to the Intercontinental GT Challenge race in for GT3 (including Super GT-X cars, which is the domestic nomenclature in that series for GT3) and selected Super GT300 cars.

The race length has varied over the years; the 2009 Super GT race was shortened to 700 km due to increasing costs and CO2 emissions regulations, as well as the economic crisis. The 700 km distance was retained in 2010, but as a result of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami and Super GT energy conservation regulations in force that year, the race was cut to 500 km. From 2012, the race returned to being a 1000 kilometer event. In 2018, the race will become a 10-hour event, matching the distance of the IMSA WeatherTech Championship race held in Braselton, Georgia (United States).

Kunimitsu Takahashi holds the all-time record with four victories at this event (1973, 1984, 1985, 1989). In terms of active Super GT drivers, Daisuke Ito is the most successful driver with three victories.

Former 24 Hours of Le Mans winners Henri Pescarolo (1981), Vern Schuppan (1983), Stanley Dickens (1988–89), Derek Warwick (1992), Yannick Dalmas (1992), Masanori Sekiya (1987, 1995), JJ Lehto (1996), Benoît Tréluyer (2006), Andre Lotterer (2007), and Loïc Duval (2011) have also won the 1000 km Suzuka in years past, as well as thirty-time Le Mans entrant Bob Wollek, five-time 24 Hours Nürburgring winner Marcel Tiemann, 1989 Japanese Grand Prix winner Alessandro Nannini, and 2015 World Endurance Drivers' Champion Mark Webber.