2008 SUPER GT Round5

Triumph has always been a little too far for Nissan in SUGO.

No.38 ZENT CERUMO SC430
Round 5 for SUPER GT Series will take place at a circuit surrounded by greenery, Sports land SUGO. Situated in the mountains, SUGO offers steep ups and downs with many mid- and high-speed turns to give the circuit a high-speed track characteristic. In SUGO, differences in the machines' potential only play a little factor especially among powerful GT500 class, thus creating more exciting battles on the track that allures fans in and out of the circuit.

If the gap between machines becomes smaller, SUGO should have seen a variety of winners in their history, one might think. Well, mysteriously, Toyotas have been very successful in edging out their rivals here, winning 6 years in a row from 2001 to 2006 with Supra and SC430, noting that they could have extended the streak to seven only if No.36 SC430 hadn't had the penalty last year. So, at the end of the day, the most favorite at SUGO would settle to SC430, especially No.38 ZENT CERUMO SC430 (Yuji Tachikawa/Richard Lyons). With lesser handicap-weight, No.39 DENSO DUNLOP SARD SC430 (Toranosuke Takagi/Andre Couto) looks good for the race also.


No.1 ARTA NSX
ARTA NSX got in the way of Toyotas to stop their outstanding winning streak last year. In fact, NSX also favors SUGO for its high-speed corners. Putting that into account, there are a great chance that we will see No.1 ARTA NSX (Ralph Firman/Takuya Izawa), No.17 REAL NSX (Katsutomo Kaneishi/Toshihiro Kaneishi), or No.100 RAYBRIG NSX (Yuji Ide/Shinya Hosokawa) running at the front of SUPER GT cars.

No.12 CALSONIC IMPUL GT-R
Contrastingly, SUGO has always been a challenge for Nissans. It's not that they are unsuccessful, but Nissan has not won a single race in GT500 class at SUGO since JGTC's inauguration in 1994. Winning three out of four races this season, can GT-R keep the momentum to break the jinx? No.12 CALSONIC IMPUL GT-R (Tsugio Matsuda/Sebastien Philippe) and No.3 YelloHat YMS TOMICA GT-R (Ronnie Quintarelli/Naoki Yokomizo) would be the leading forces in their quest to grab their first ever victory.

Whatever the outcome, SUGO will surely present exciting battles that will be told for years, like the one from last year where the top three went "Three-wide" (three cars aligned side-by-side) on the straight. On the other hand, if a team fails to win or finish in top positions here, their race for the series champion will just get tougher, so it is a turning point for all teams in GT500 class.

The new comer IS350 tops the GT300 list!

No.77 CUSCO DUNLOP SUBARU IMPREZA
It's even harder to predict the winner in the GT300 class. No.77 CUSCO DUNLOP SUBARU IMPREZA (Tetsuya Yamano/Kouta Sasaki) would have been the top contender, but they dominated the race in Sepang all the way to the finish, and, as a consequence, they will be loaded with handicap-weight at SUGO. They still have a chance if they were blessed with a heavy rain, which enables them to take a full advantage of AWD (All-Wheel Drive) to overcome the drag created by the weights.

Then who would it be? No.19 WedsSport IS350 (Manabu Orido/Tsubasa Abe) tops our recommendation list at this point. Racing Project Bandoh has been very successful at the circuit. They won here last year with Celica to mark their third wins at SUGO, becoming the winningest team at SUGO in the GT300 class. Their new IS350, which made its debut at the third round, is constantly maturing as it qualified second at previous event in Sepang. Unfortunately, their race ended soon after the start due to an accident. To pay back their disappointment, Orido and his team must be eager to win the race at SUGO. We should also track No. 52 GREEN TEC KUMHO IS350 (Takuya Kurosawa/Takuto Iguchi), another IS350 team.

To name more contenders for SUGO, No.81 DAISHIN ADVAN Z (Takayuki Aoki/Tomonobu Fujii) would follow the above two. Although Nissans traditionally have had difficult races at SUGO in the GT500 class, their Fairlady Z had outrun rivals in a close battle and won the race here two years ago. Taking the advantage of lighter weights, Ferrari, Porsche Boxter, and Lamborghini may cause turbulence in the top group of the class.

No.19 WedsSport IS350

No.81 DAISHIN ADVAN Z