Suzuka 1000km Grid Reaches 30 Cars With Final Entry List

The grid for next week’s Suzuka 1000km round of the Intercontinental GT Challenge has reached 30 cars with the publication of the final entry list on Friday.

The biggest changes from the provisional entry list revealed last month are the late additions of two cars in the Bronze class, the No. 81 Team Daishin Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 and the No. 72 Harmony Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo.

Team Daishin’s lineup, featuring two-time SUPER GT champion and former overall Suzuka 1000km winner Tsugio Matsuda, was revealed on Thursday.

Harmony meanwhile has called on the services of Song Jiajun, Brendon Leitch and Liu Kaishun, all of whom represent the team in GT World Challenge Asia powered by AWS.

The Chinese squad was part of the Suzuka 1000km grid last year with Dustin Blattner, Dennis Marschall and Lorenzo Patrese, and continues to be a fixture of the GT World Challenge Asia powered by AWS grid with three cars entered.

It boosts the Bronze class to 14 cars, with nine Pro class cars, six Pro-Am entries and a sole Am car making up the remainder of the grid.

Despite the addition of a sixth Ferrari, Porsche remains the best represented brand on the grid with a total of 10 examples of its 911 GT3 R Evo set to compete.

The entry list also confirms Maezawa Racing’s late driver change, as Alessio Rovera steps up to replace the injured Thomas Neubauer in the No. 555 Ferrari.

Track action for the Suzuka 1000km begins with a pair of one-hour test sessions on Friday Sept. 11, followed by a two-hour night practice session later that day.

Pre-qualifying and a three-part official qualifying take place on Saturday Sept. 12 before the main event gets under way on Sunday Sept. 13 at 12:50 p.m. local time (11:50 p.m. EST) with the checkered flag scheduled to fly six-and-a-half hours later.