2008 SUPER GT Round9

XANAVI NISMO GT-R remains favorable, but...

Grabbing their third win of the season at the last race in Autopolis, No.23 XANAVI NISMO GT-R (Satoshi Motoyama / Benoit Treluyer) extended their drivers ranking point to 74 with the win, which put them on the top of the ranking going in to the final round with 17 points advantage over the second team in ranking, No.18 TAKATA DOME NSX (Ryo Michigami / Takashi Kogure). For the final round, only the points earned from the race will be granted to drivers. In another words, a driver can only earn maximum of 20 points. Therefore, even if No.23 Motoyama / Treluyer finished with no points, No.18 Michigami / Kogure has to finish the race at second place or better to get away with the title.

Besides No.18 Michigami / Kogure, No.36 PETORNAS TOM'S SC430 (Juichi Wakisaka / Andre Lotterer), No.38 ZENT CERUMO SC430 (Yuji Tachikawa / Richard Lyons), and No.22 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R (Michael Krumm / Masataka Yanagida) still have a chance to clinch the title, but all of them will need at least a win plus the outcome of No.23 Motoyama / Treluyer.

No.23 Motoyama / Treluyer, on the other hand, can secure the title with their own hands if they finish the race at fifth place or higher. Moreover, if none of the other four title contenders win the race, they can become champion with ninth place finish. Obviously, they are going in to the final race with a great advantage. However, No.23 GT-R will need to mount 80kg of handicap weight which can create a difficult situation for them since the effect from the weight impacts the car greatly at Fuji Speedway. The handicap weight on the SC430 of No.38 Tachikawa / Lyons and the GT-R of No.22 Krumm / Yanagida is at a rather lighter 25kg each. Considering that No.38 Tachikawa / Lyons favors Fuji, winning the third round of the series in Fuji, and the GT-Rs, on the other, suffered devastating defeat at the same round, the possibility for No.38 Tachikawa / Lyons to take away the crown can be considerable, especially when the famous upset at the final round of 2005 season where the champion was decided after turning around 14-points deficit was done by the very same No.38 CERUMO and Tachikawa.

Key players in the season title contention.

As mentioned, a win in Fuji will be the key for the title contention of 2008 season. And there are many others who are keen to win the last race of the season even if they are not in the position for the title. The results of the teams who are yet to win a race this season, that are No.17 REAL NSX (Katsutomo Kaneishi / Toshihiro Kaneishi), No.100 RAYBRIG NSX (Yuji Ide / Shinya Hosokawa), and No.6 ENEOS SC430 (Daisuke Ito / Bjong Wirdheim) with their ace driver Daisuke Ito coming back, and the teams looking for the second win of the season, No.12 CALSONIC IMPUL GT-R (Tsugio Matsuda / Sebastien Philippe) and No.24 WOODONE ADVAN Clarion GT-R (Joao Paulo Lima de Oliveira / Seiji Ara), can well stir up the outcome of the season title.

On the other aspect of the series, No.36 Wakisaka / Lotterer will be coming in to Fuji with a lead over No.23 Motoyama / Treluyer in the team ranking. Although being out of the driver's title contention, No.36 will, for sure, give 100% until the very last moment to bring even a single point to the team to prevent GT-R from accomplishing a perfect domination over GT500 class.

No teams got advantage!? A great turmoil in GT300.

GT300 class will also see the title decided at the final round in Fuji, but the competition for the driver's title in GT300 is much tighter than that of GT500.

First place in the ranking, No.43 ARTA Garaiya (Morio Nitta / Shinichi Takagi), the second place No.46 MOLA LEOPALACE Z (Kazuki Hoshino / Hironobu Yasuda), and the third place No.2 Privée KENZO Asset Shiden (Kazuho Takahashi / Hiroki Katoh) all sit in a 7-point span with handicap weights of 80kg, 100kg, and 55kg, respectively. They are more likely to battle for 1 point in the mid- to bottom-group of the race instead of battling for the top-place finish. Another contender and the winner of the previous race in Autoplis, No.81 DAISHIN ADVAN Z (Takayuki Aoki / Tomonobu Fujii), will need to at least win despite their handicap weight of 60kg. They just need to be at the front regardless of where their rivals are on the track.

Meantime, favoring high-speed tracks, Porsche teams, No.26 YUNKER POWER TAISAN PORSCHE (Nobuteru Taniguchi / Dominik Farnbacher), No.33 HANKOOK PORSCHE (Mitsuhiro Kinoshita / Masami Kageyama), and No.110 KUMHO BOXSTER-GT (Hidetoshi Mitsusada / Daisuke Ikeda) may play an interesting role in the battle for the final race winner. Other foreign cars, No.11 JIMCENTER ADVAN F430 (Tetsuya Tanaka / Masayuki Ueda), No.66 triple a MURCIE GT-1 (Koji Yamanishi / Atsushi Yogo), and No.62 WILLCOM ADVAN VEMAC408R (Shinsuke Shibahara / Haruki Kurosawa) may be able to grab top positions. With a combination of three consecutive GT300 champion and the 2008 All Nippon F3 champion that started from the last round, No.77 CUSCO DUMLOP SUBARU IMPREZA (Tetsuya Yamano / Carlo Van Dam) could be a dark horse.

In any cases, the final round in Fuji will be a spectacle with a full of excitements from the front to the last row of the starting formation. Don't miss the very moment where the drama is being shown.