The world’s best primed for Suzuka 1000km return

Japan’s Summer Endurance Race makes its long-awaited Intercontinental GT Challenge return this weekend when 33 GT3 cars and eight manufacturers contest the Suzuka 1000km.

Held for the first time since 2019, Asia’s longest running sportscar event also doubles up as this year’s penultimate IGTC round. Two of its three championships can therefore, potentially, be decided on Sunday evening.

Victories at the first two events leave BMW out front in the manufacturers’ standings, while two points separate its leading contenders Augusto Farfus and Kelvin van der Linde at the top of the drivers’ table. Ralf Bohn and Kenny Habul share the Independent Cup lead after winning at Spa and Bathurst, respectively.

Snapping at their heels is one of the largest Intercontinental entries ever assembled away from the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa. Indeed, 26 of the 33 cars represent one of IGTC’s four registered manufacturers: BMW, Ferrari, Mercedes-AMG and Porsche. As ever, each brand’s top two finishers will score points towards its manufacturers’ championship tally, while drivers collect their points per IGTC’s top 10.

The opportunity to race at a circuit as legendary as Suzuka has also attracted Independent Cup’s largest entry since the maiden Intercontinental campaign in 2016. Antares Au, Adrian D’Silva and Jonathan Hui join Bohn and Habul in the hunt for IGTC medals and 25 points before the season concludes at Indianapolis next month.

Elsewhere, Audi, Callaway, Chevrolet and Nissan are solely focused on overall and class success.

Victory contenders galore amongst Suzuka’s star-studded entry

Provisionally, the Bronze category accounts for the greatest number of entries with 12, one more than Pro. Five will contest Pro-Am, Silver has three, and Am two. Outright victory and the majority of IGTC points are most likely to be scored by the Pro crews, nine of which represent Mercedes-AMG, Porsche and BMW.

The latter’s recent four-race winning streak was broken by Porsche last time out at Spa where Alessio Picariello, Patric Niederhauser and Sven Müller scored maximum IGTC points for finishing second overall. All three are also racing at Suzuka, albeit split across Stuttgart’s four Pro entries, while Picariello is the best placed non-BMW driver in IGTC’s standings.

Porsche Motorsport Asia Pacific has also reprised three significant liveries from the manufacturer’s back catalogue. Origine Motorsport will use the same design as adorned Kremer’s 1981 Suzuka 1000km-winning 935 K3, the NewMan colours that won Le Mans in 1984 and ’85 have been entrusted to Absolute Racing, and Phantom Global Racing has chosen the legendary ‘Pink Pig’ that first raced in 1971.

Porsche trails BMW by 14 points in the Intercontinental manufacturers’ standings, but its numerical advantage at Suzuka – 11 cars vs three – and drivers like World Endurance Champions Kevin Estre and Laurens Vanthoor offers an opportunity to close the gap before the finale next month.

BMW, meanwhile, will be looking to extend its lead and potentially even win the manufacturers’ title this weekend. To do so, its two Pro and one Bronze entry must increase that advantage to 44 points – one more than the maximum available at Indianapolis.

It won’t be easy given the competition despite BMW having two especially potent Pro line-ups at its disposal. Championship leader Farfus, who claimed pole at Suzuka in 2019, shares the first of Team WRT’s two M4s with young factory stars Dan Harper and Max Hesse, while Van der Linde – a winner of the last 10 Hours – is joined by 2018 victor Raffaele Marciello and reigning IGTC champion Charles Weerts.

GMR, which won the first IGTC-counting Summer Endurance Race in 2018, returns to spearhead Mercedes-AMG’s effort along with Craft-Bamboo and Goodsmile. The factory trio of Mikael Grenier, Maxime Martin and Luca Stolz appears especially strong, while the presence and performance of Super Formula title contender Kakunoshin Ohta – who shares Craft-Bamboo’s entry with Maximilian Götz and Ralf Aron – will be of particular interest to Japanese fans.

The same applies to Nobuteru Taniguchi, Tatsuya Kataoka and Kamui Kobayashi who raced together at Spa in June. Goodsmile’s trio were also part of the 10 Hours back in 2018 and ‘19.

IGTC’s other registered manufacturer, Ferrari, does not have a Pro entry at Suzuka. Instead, its five cars comprise a mix of Bronze and Pro-Am crews run by GT World Challenge Asia powered by AWS and Japan Cup teams.

Among them are Harmony’s ‘Ramen Rocket’ – a nod to its fun livery! – and the Maezawa Racing 296 that pairs Ferrari works driver Thomas Neubauer with Japan Cup duo Naoki Yokomizo and Yusaku Maezawa. Ponos Racing's Yorikatsu Tsujiko and Kei Cozzolino arrive fresh from their Japan Cup victory at Okayama, while Formula 1 race winner Giancarlo Fisichella features amongst LM Corsa’s crew.

Elsewhere, JMR’s Corvettes will not contend for Intercontinental points. However, its Pro entry comprising Chevrolet works drivers Alexander Sims and Nicky Catsburg plus IndyCar star and multiple Supercars champion Scott McLaughlin is expected to be an outright victory contender. The latter, whose Penske IndyCar also uses GM power, will be making his first IGTC start since Bathurst 2018.

Nissan also has a Pro crew at its disposal courtesy of Team Handwork Challenge who have recruited Super GT regulars Daiki Sasaki, Iori Kimura and Atsushi Miyake. But 5ZIGEN will also pose a threat with its Silver-rated trio of Yu Kanamaru, Takayuki Aoki and reigning Super GT300 champion Yuya Motojima. The same team and GT-R won a GT World Challenge Asia race at Suzuka last year.

Audi’s hopes of emulating its 2019 victory rest solely with Audi Sport Asia Team Phantom, while Bingo Racing’s crowd-pleasing Callaway Corvette C7-R completes the list of eight manufacturers.

Japan Cup double duty

Intriguingly, several teams and drivers are contesting both the 1000km and Japan Cup season finale over the same weekend.

Most remarkable of all is Runup Sports whose Nissan – as well as Masaaki Nishikawa and Atsushi Tanaka – are scheduled to run the sprint and endurance races. Its 1000km crew has shifted to the Am class following the addition of Yusaku Shibata.

Maezawa/ Yokomizo (Maezawa Racing), and Tsujiko/Cozzolino (Ponos Racing) are also down to both, while Shinji Takei and Ukyo Sasahara are swapping between Bingo’s Callaway Corvette and Ferrari.

Motojima must also contend with a second manufacturer when he jumps between 5ZIGEN’s GT-R and the Max Racing Mercedes-AMG.