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
All Japan Grand Touring Car Championship is a grand touring car racing series that began in 1993. Originally titled as the , generally referred to as either the JGTC the series was renamed to Super GT in 2005. It was the top level of sports car r ...
(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 , abbreviated as JSPC, formed by the Japan Automobile Federation, was a domestic championship which took place in Japan for Group C and IMSA GTP prototype cars and also featured cars that were eligible for touring car racing in its earlier y ...
. 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 Fuji may refer to:
Places China
* Fuji, Xiangcheng City (付集镇), town in Xiangcheng City, Henan
Japan
* Mount Fuji, the tallest mountain in Japan
* Fuji River
* Fuji, Saga, town in Saga Prefecture
* Fuji, Shizuoka, city in Shizuoka Prefec ...
. Due to the worldwide economic crisis, race weekends were two days instead of three.
André Lotterer and
Juichi Wakisaka
is a former Japanese racing driver who was a 2002, 2006 and 2009 champion in Japan's Super GT series in the GT500 category. Prior to the 1998 Formula One season he tested for the Jordan Grand Prix team.
In 2002, Wakisaka raced the Toyota Sup ...
claimed the GT500 title in the
Petronas TOM'S
is a factory supported racing team and tuner of Toyota and Lexus vehicles. The name stands for Tachi Oiwa Motor Sport. Their head office is located in Tokyo, Japan. They are currently heavily involved with Super GT, Super Formula and Super Form ...
Lexus SC430
The is a grand tourer that was retailed by Lexus (a luxury vehicle division of Toyota), and built from 1991 until 2010. It features a front-engine, rear-wheel-drive design and seating for up to four passengers. The first-generation SC debuted as ...
. The team also won their respective teams title.
Manabu Orido
is a Japanese racing driver who currently competes in the Super GT series for Team apr Racing, driving a Toyota GR86 GT300 and in the Super Taikyu, driving Aston Martin Vantage GT4. He's a two-time JGTC/Super GT GT300 class champions.
Racing ca ...
and Tatsuya Kataoka won the GT300 title in the
Racing Project Bandoh
Racing Project Bandoh Ltd. is a Japanese racing team competing in the Super GT series.
Racing History
Created in 1990 by Masaaki Bando, Racing Project Bandoh raced in the All Japan Touring Car Championship from 1987 (as an earlier organizati ...
IS350 by three points from
Nobuteru Taniguchi
is a Japanese racing driver and drifting driver who currently competes in Super GT and D1 Grand Prix. Taniguchi is commonly nicknamed "NOB" (first three letters from his name, meaning "No One Better") or "The Pimp" as a reference to his S15 Silv ...
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
The Japanese Super Formula Championship is a formula racing series. It is considered as being the top level of single-seater racing in Japan and regional motorsports in Asia. The series is sanctioned by the Japan Automobile Federation (JAF) and ...
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
The Aston Martin DBR9 is a racing car built by Aston Martin Racing, debuting in 2005 and racing actively in international sportscar racing until the end of GT1 category in 2011. The name DBR9 is derived from the original 24 Hours of Le Mans-winn ...
. 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
The Maserati MC12 (''Tipo M144S'') is a limited production two-seater sports car produced by Italian car maker Maserati to allow a racing variant to compete in the FIA GT Championship. The car entered production in 2004, with 25 cars produced. ...
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 Fuji may refer to:
Places China
* Fuji, Xiangcheng City (付集镇), town in Xiangcheng City, Henan
Japan
* Mount Fuji, the tallest mountain in Japan
* Fuji River
* Fuji, Saga, town in Saga Prefecture
* Fuji, Shizuoka, city in Shizuoka Prefec ...
, 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
The is a compact car that has been manufactured by the Japanese automaker Subaru since 1992. It was introduced as a replacement for the Leone, with the predecessor's EA series engines replaced by the new EJ series. It is now in its sixth gene ...
), 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
GT300
Schedule
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
Standings
GT500 Drivers
;Scoring system:
GT300 Drivers
;Scoring system:
External links
Super GT official website
{{Super GT seasons
2009
Super GT