Postponed Suzuka Finale Distance Cut to 300km

SUPER GT organizers have announced that the postponed season finale at Suzuka in December will now be held over 300km instead of the originally-planned 350km.

What had been scheduled for Aug. 31-Sept. 1 as the fifth round of the season at the famous figure-of-eight venue was moved to Dec. 7-8 in anticipation of Typhoon Shanshan hitting the area around the Mie Prefecture venue that weekend.

While it was initially expected that the finale would retain the 350km format, on Sunday at Autopolis it was announced by GTA chairman Masaaki Bandoh during his regular press conference that the race distance would be cut to 300km.

Bandoh explained the main reason was the fact that track temperatures are expected to drop rapidly in the afternoon with the sun due to set not much after 4:30 p.m. local time.

As such, the race will also start earlier than normal, at 12:40 p.m. local time (Saturday 10:40 p.m. EST), with 3:30 p.m. (1:30 a.m. EST) set as the latest possible finish time.

However, teams will be allowed to use five sets of tires per car for the weekend, instead of the usual limit for 300km races of four sets, in order to give them greater flexibility in the colder weather conditions.

Tire warmers will continue to be banned for the Suzuka finale despite calls from some quarters for them to be allowed, with Bandoh citing the fact that many teams, especially in the GT300 class, do not own tire-warming equipment.

Additionally, the qualifying format will also be revised to take into account the cold weather: each session will be extended by five minutes to 15 minutes, with the GT500 cars going out first due to their tires being harder to warm up than the GT300s.