The 2009 Autobacs Super GT Series was the seventeenth season of the Japan Automobile Federation Super GT Championship including the All Japan Grand Touring Car Championship (JGTC) era and the fifth season as the Super GT series.
It marked as well as the twenty-seventh season of a JAF-sanctioned sports car racing championship dating back to the All Japan Sports Prototype Championship. The season opener on March 22, was moved to Okayama, due to the continued renovation of Suzuka in preparation for the 2009 Japanese Grand Prix. The season finale on November 8 also was moved to Motegi, instead of Fuji. Due to the worldwide economic crisis, race weekends were two days instead of three.
André Lotterer and Juichi Wakisaka claimed the GT500 title in the Petronas TOM'S Lexus SC430. The team also won their respective teams title. Manabu Orido and Tatsuya Kataoka won the GT300 title in the Racing Project Bandoh IS350 by three points from Nobuteru Taniguchi and Ryo Orime.
Car development
GT500 class Originally the three makers agreed to unify engine specification to 3.4L V8 engines (the same configuration of Formula Nippon at the time). However, due to the aforementioned economic crisis, Nissan encountered difficulties to develop a suitable engine for their GT-R, and chose to bear a performance ballast while using the same engine as last year. Honda continued to use their mid-engine NSX with performance ballast as the regulations originally planned to mandate front-engine cars. This was also their last year in Super GT with the original NSX, as they announced they would use a new vehicle (the HSV-010) starting in the 2010 season. Honda returned with the NSX in 2014 following the unveiling of the second-generation concept car in 2014, later revised to be based on the production model in 2017; both of which ran midship engine layout until 2019 season.
Team Nova entered the series with a Le Mans spec Aston Martin DBR9. It was the first Aston Martin car to participate the series history (including JGTC), and also the first European and non-Honda/Nissan/Toyota car in GT500 since the 2006 season (a Maserati MC12 did participate the pre-season test in 2006 season but withdraw from the series later). The DBR9 only ran at the first round at Okayama and the two rounds at Fuji, and as of July 2020 is the last non-Japanese car to compete in GT500.
GT300 class The apr Racing Team, which had used the Toyota MR-S for a long time decided to discontinue their use of MR-S, and for this season decided to replace it with a mid-engined Toyota Corolla Axio instead.
The Cusco, the only team using an AWD car (Subaru Impreza), left the series as they wanted to concentrate on off-road events. However, Subaru cars were not absent from the series as R&D Sport used a Legacy B4 for round 6, 7 and 9.
Thunder Asia Racing, a team from Singapore, entered round 4 at Sepang with a Mosler MT900R. Their full participation in 2010 season was confirmed after the 2009 season ended.
Weight ballast changes In order to combat sandbagging, where a team would intentionally perform poorly in order to secure a more favorable weight handicap, the success ballast formula was changed starting from this season: the ballast would be halved in the penultimate race and lifted altogether in final race for teams that participated in every round of the season. Teams missing only one round receive halved-ballast in the final race instead.
Drivers and teams
GT500 Team Make Car Engine Drivers Tyre Rounds Nismo Nissan Nissan GT-R GT500 Nissan VK45DE 4.5 L V8 1 Satoshi Motoyama All Benoît Tréluyer 1–5, 7–9 Michael Krumm 6 Hasemi Motorsport Nissan Nissan GT-R GT500 Nissan VK45DE 4.5 L V8 3 Ronnie Quintarelli All Hironobu Yasuda All Lexus Team LeMans ENEOS Lexus Lexus SC430 GT500 Lexus RV8 kg 3.4 L V8 6 Daisuke Ito All Björn Wirdheim All Autobacs Racing Team Aguri Honda Honda NSX GT500 Honda C32B 3.4 L V6 8 Ralph Firman All Takuya Izawa All Team Impul Nissan Nissan GT-R GT500 Nissan VK45DE 4.5 L V8 12 Tsugio Matsuda All Sébastien Philippe All Keihin Real Racing Honda Honda NSX GT500 Honda C32B 3.4 L V6 17 Toshihiro Kaneishi All Koudai Tsukakoshi All Katsutomo Kaneishi 6 Team Yoshiki and Dome Project Honda Honda NSX GT500 Honda C32B 3.4 L V6 18 Ryō Michigami All Takashi Kogure All Team Nova Aston Martin Aston Martin DBR9 Aston Martin AM04 6.0 L V12 21 Akihiro Tsuzuki 1, 3, 7 Takeshi Tsuchiya 1, 3, 7 Kondo Racing Nissan Nissan GT-R GT500 Nissan VK45DE 4.5 L V8 24 João Paulo de Oliveira All Seiji Ara All Nakajima Racing Honda Honda NSX GT500 Honda C32B 3.4 L V6 32 Loïc Duval All Yuhki Nakayama All Lexus Team Kraft Lexus Lexus SC430 GT500 Lexus RV8 kg 3.4 L V8 35 Hiroaki Ishiura All Kazuya Oshima All Lexus Team Petronas TOM'S Lexus Lexus SC430 GT500 Lexus RV8 kg 3.4 L V8 36 Juichi Wakisaka All André Lotterer All Lexus Team ZENT Cerumo Lexus Lexus SC430 GT500 Lexus RV8 kg 3.4 L V8 38 Yuji Tachikawa All Richard Lyons All Lexus Team SARD Lexus Lexus SC430 GT500 Lexus RV8 kg 3.4 L V8 39 Kohei Hirate All André Couto All Team Kunimitsu Honda Honda NSX GT500 Honda C32B 3.4 L V6 100 Yuji Ide All Shinya Hosokawa 1–2, 4–7, 9 Kosuke Matsuura 3, 8
GT300 Team Make Car Engine Drivers Tyre Rounds Cars Tokai Dream28 Mooncraft Mooncraft Shiden Toyota 1UZ-FE 4.4 L V8 2 Hiroki Katoh All Kazuho Takahashi 1 Hiroki Yoshimoto 2–9 Avanzza Rosso Vemac Vemac RD320R Honda C32B 3.4 L V6 4 Yoshihiro Ito 6 Subaru Yamamoto 6 Michito Uezumi 6 Yoshihiro Ito 9 Igor Sushko 9 666 Shogo Suho All Junichiro Yamashita All Takashi Miyamoto 3, 6 Team Mach Vemac Vemac RD320R Porsche M96/77 3.6 L F6 5 Tetsuji Tamanaka All Akazame Oyaji All M7 RE Amemiya Racing Mazda Mazda RX-7 Mazda RE20B 2.0 L 3-rotor 7 Nobuteru Taniguchi All Ryo Orime All Jim Gainer Racing Ferrari Ferrari 360 Ferrari F131B 3.6 L V8 10 Masayuki Ueda All Masataka Kawaguchi All Ferrari F430 Ferrari F136E 4.3 L V8 11 Tetsuya Tanaka All Katsuyuki Hiranaka All Racing Project Bandoh Lexus Lexus IS350 Lexus RV8J 3.4 L V8 19 Tatsuya Kataoka All Manabu Orido All Team Taisan Porsche Porsche 996 GT3-RS Porsche M96/77 3.6 L F6 26 Haruki Kurosawa 1–4, 6–7, 9 Tsubasa Abe 1–3, 5–9 Katsuhiko Tsutsui 4, 6, 8 Tsubasa Kurosawa 5 Team Takeuchi with Shift Lexus Lexus IS350 Lexus RV8J 3.4 L V8 30 Kota Sasaki 1–3 Naoya Yamano 1–3 52 Kota Sasaki 4–9 Naoya Yamano 4–6 Yuhi Sekiguchi 6–9 apr Toyota Toyota Corolla Axio apr GT Toyota 2GR-FSE 3.5 L V6 31 Yuya Sakamoto All Hideki Yamauchi 1–4 Kyosuke Mineo 5–9 Takamori.com 6 74 Takuto Iguchi All Yuji Kunimoto All Hankook KTR Porsche Porsche 997 GT3-RSR Porsche M97/80 3.8 L F6 33 Mitsuhiro Kinoshita 3, 5, 7 Masami Kageyama 3, 5, 7 Autobacs Racing Team Aguri ASL ASL ARTA Garaiya Nissan VQ35DE 3.5 L V6 43 Morio Nitta All Shinichi Takagi All MOLA Nissan Nissan Fairlady Z Nissan VQ35DE 3.5 L V6 46 Kazuki Hoshino All Masataka Yanagida All Tomei Sports Porsche Porsche 996 GT3-RSR Porsche M96/77 3.6 L F6 55 Yutaka Yamagishi 1–7, 9 Hiroshi Koizumi 1–7, 9 R&D Sport Subaru Subaru Legacy B4 Subaru EJ20 2.0 L Turbo F4 62 Shogo Mitsuyama 6–7, 9 Tetsuya Yamano 6–7, 9 JLOC Lamborghini Lamborghini Murcielago RG-1 Lamborghini L535 6.0 L V12 66 Koji Yamanishi All Atsushi Yogo All Marco Apicella 3 Lamborghini Gallardo RG-3 Lamborghini 07L1 5.2 L V10 87 Hiroyuki Iiri All Hisashi Wada All 88 Hideshi Matsuda All Yuya Sakamoto All Thunder Asia Racing Mosler Mosler MT900R GM LS7 7.0 L V8 69 Melvin Choo 4 Martin Short 4 Team Daishin Ferrari Ferrari F430 Ferrari F136E 4.3 L V8 81 Takayuki Aoki All Tomonobu Fujii All Koji Matsuda 6 Arktech Motorsports Porsche Porsche Boxster Porsche M96/77 3.6 L F6 110 Kim Han Bong 1–3 Daisuke Ikeda 1, 8 Tatsuya Tanigawa 2–3, 5, 8 Takashi Ohi 5 Porsche 996 GT3-RSR Porsche M96/73 3.6 L F6 111 Takaya Tsubobayashi 1–3 Igor Sushko 1 Daisuke Ikeda 2–4 Tojiro Azuma 4 112 Takashi Ohi 7, 9 Yoshiaki Nakayama 7 Keita Sawa 8–9 Aaron Caratti 8 Studie GLAD Racing BMW BMW Z4M BMW S62B50 4.9 L V8 808 Shozo Tagahara 1–3, 5–9 Yasushi Kikuchi 1–3, 5–7 Taku Bamba 6, 8–9
Schedule Round Race Circuit Date 1 Okayama GT 300 km Okayama International Circuit March 22 2 Suzuka GT 300 km Suzuka Circuit April 19 3 Fuji GT 400 km Fuji Speedway May 4 4 Super GT International Series Malaysia Sepang International Circuit June 21 5 SUGO GT 300 km Sportsland SUGO July 26 6 Pokka GT Summer Special Suzuka Circuit August 23 7 Fuji GT 300 km Fuji Speedway September 13 8 Autopolis GT 300 km Autopolis October 18 9 Motegi GT 250 km Twin Ring Motegi November 8
As a measure of cost reduction, the two longest race, as well as the final race in the series' distance in the series was shortened in this season. This included the trimming of the traditional 1000km race in Suzuka to 700 km. However, to avoid 1-pit strategy that caused unfairness to some teams, teams were required to pit twice in the Fuji 400 km race.
Season Winners
Rd Circuit GT500 Winning Team GT300 Winning Team Results GT500 Winning Drivers GT300 Winning Drivers 1 Okayama #24 HIS Kondo Racing GT-R #19 WedsSport IS350 Results João Paulo de Oliveira Seiji Ara Manabu Orido Tatsuya Kataoka 2 Suzuka #38 ZENT Cerumo SC430 #33 Hankook Porsche Results Yuji Tachikawa Richard Lyons Mitsuhiro Kinoshita Masami Kageyama 3 Mt. Fuji #1 MOTUL Autech GT-R #43 ARTA Garaiya Results Satoshi Motoyama Benoît Tréluyer Morio Nitta Shinichi Takagi 4 Kuala Lumpur #3 Hasemi Tomica Ebbro GT-R #2 I.M Jihan Co.Ltd•Apple Shiden Results Ronnie Quintarelli Hironobu Yasuda Hiroki Katoh Hiroki Yoshimoto 5 Sportsland SUGO #1 MOTUL Autech GT-R #33 Hankook Porsche Results Satoshi Motoyama Benoît Tréluyer Mitsuhiro Kinoshita Masami Kageyama 6 Suzuka #35 Kraft SC430 #46 S Road Mola Z Results Hiroaki Ishiura Kazuya Oshima Kazuki Hoshino Masataka Yanagida 7 Mt. Fuji #8 ARTA NSX #81 Daishin Ferrari F430 Results Ralph Firman Takuya Izawa Takayuki Aoki Tomonobu Fujii 8 Autopolis #36 Petronas TOM'S SC430 #11 Jim Gainer Advan F430 Results Juichi Wakisaka André Lotterer Tetsuya Tanaka Katsuyuki Hiranaka 9 Motegi #8 ARTA NSX #81 Daishin Ferrari F430 Results Ralph Firman Takuya Izawa Takayuki Aoki Tomonobu Fujii
Standings
GT500 Drivers Scoring system Position 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th 10th Points 20 15 11 8 6 5 4 3 2 1 RankDriverNo.OKASUZFUJSEPSUGSUZFUJAUTMOTPts.1 Juichi Wakisaka André Lotterer361122678312882 Ralph Firman Takuya Izawa8314331412141813 Satoshi Motoyama1131118162214784 Benoît Tréluyer113111812214735 Toshihiro Kaneishi Koudai Tsukakoshi17561226104Ret3516 Ryō Michigami Takashi Kogure18251312348510507 Ronnie Quintarelli Hironobu Yasuda3121371926812498 João Paulo de Oliveira Seiji Ara241845131113311489 Hiroaki Ishiura Kazuya Oshima3597591217794410 Yuji Tachikawa Richard Lyons38619101031011134111 Tsugio Matsuda Sébastien Philippe12431578515Ret73612 Daisuke Ito Björn Wirdheim61046145Ret51043513 Yuji Ide1008121144912682914 André Couto Kohei Hirate391510101327111252715 Shinya Hosokawa1008124491282416 Loïc Duval Yuhki Nakayama327981111Ret9961817 Kosuke Matsuura100 11 6518 Michael Krumm1 6 519 Katsutomo Kaneishi17 10 1- Akihiro Tsuzuki Takeshi Tsuchiya2114 14 14 0RankDriverNo.OKASUZFUJSEPSUGSUZFUJAUTMOTPts.
Teams' standings RankTeamNo.OKASUZFUJSEPSUGSUZFUJAUTMOTPts. 1 Lexus Team Petronas TOM'S 361122678312 1122 Autobacs Racing Team Aguri 8314331412141 102 3 Nismo 1131118162214 1014 Team Yoshiki & Dome Project 18251312348510 75 5 KEIHIN Real Racing 17561226104Ret3 726 Hasemi Motorsport 3121371926812 71 7 Kondo Racing 241845131113311 69 8 Lexus Team Kraft 359759121779 68 9 Lexus Team ZENT Cerumo 3861910103101113 63 10 Team Impul 12431578515Ret7 55 11 Lexus Team LeMans ENEOS 61046145Ret5104 54 12 Team Kunimitsu 100812114491268 5213 Lexus Team SARD 39151010132711125 48 14 Nakajima Racing 327981111Ret996 39 15 Team Nova 21141414 3RankTeamNo.OKASUZFUJSEPSUGSUZFUJAUTMOTPts.
GT300 Drivers Scoring system Position 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th 10th Points 20 15 11 8 6 5 4 3 2 1