Suzuka Post-Race Notebook

***The 50th running of the Suzuka 1000km ran to the full distance, as the winning No. 8 AO by Absolute Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo completed 184 laps, 14 more than last year’s winning car and 11 laps over the number needed to reach the threshold. The top four cars finished on the lead lap and were all credited with having covered 1068.48 km.

***The winning margin of 51.416 seconds achieved by Laurin Heinrich, Alessio Picariello and Julien Andlauer is the largest of the SRO era, and the biggest since 2015, when TOM’S Lexus duo Daisuke Ito and James Rossiter won by one minute, 25 seconds.

***Porsche’s 12th win in the Suzuka 1000km extends its lead as the marque with the most wins in the Japanese enduro, putting it four clear of Toyota and Honda. The Weissach brand’s previous win came with Jean-Pierre Jarier, Jesus Pareja and Bob Wollek in 1994, the first year that the race was part of the BPR Global GT Series. AO by Absolute also becomes the first-ever U.S.-flagged entry to win the race.

***To cap off a successful day for the brand, Porsche extended its lead of the Intercontinental GT Challenge manufacturers’ standings over Mercedes-AMG, helped by the No. 7 Absolute car finishing third, while Kerong Li wrapped up the Independent Cup with a race to spare with second place in the Bronze class (eighth overall) in the No. 89 High Class Racing car alongside Anders Fjordbach and Joel Sturm.

***Porsche Motorsport Asia Pacific managing director Alexandre Gibot said post-race: “We made history today. We hadn’t won since 1994, so we knew it was overdue and very happy that AO by Absolute made it today. It was an also an amazing job by Absolute to be P3 overall. Also, in the other classes, we had a great result, a double podium in the Bronze Cup [in which the No. 91 Herberth Motorsport car was third] and Kerong Li being crowned champion in the IGTC Independent Cup. It’s a great feeling tonight and thanks to all the teams, drivers and partners who supported us.”

***The Bosch-liveried No. 7 Absolute car of Ayhancan Guven, Dorian Boccolacci and Alessandro Ghiretti lost out on a chance to complete a 1-2 for Porsche after losing track position with a refuelling rig issue that notably lengthened the car’s penultimate pit stop, although Guven — who set the race’s fastest lap — was able to repass Nicky Catsburg’s Johor Motorsports JMR Corvette to recover third in the final hour.

***Boccolacci said: “We had some ups and downs. We had some problem during the pit stops, but with Ayhancan in the car we were able to fight back to the podium. For sure we could have had a 1-2, but sometimes racing is like this. You can’t predict everything, and we did a good job. Comparing last year to this year, we improved a lot.”

***JMR’s season came to a conclusion with fourth place overall with the No. 2 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R driven by Catsburg, Scott McLaughlin and Alexander Sims. Team principal Prince Jefri Ibrahim, who was part of the Pro-Am No. 99 JMR crew that finished second in class commented: “It wasn’t the result we wanted for the Pro car. We know we can do better but we are here to learn. It’s our first year of having a Pro car. They proved how strong they were from last year and even this year at Bathurst and back here at Suzuka. This is just the start. I’m sure we’ll come back stronger.”

***The Malaysian team’s Pro-Am podium completes a successful year that included second in class in the Meguiar’s Bathurst 12 Hour, class victory in the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa and a finish on debut in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The team is understood to have dropped plans to contest the IGTC season-closing Indianapolis 8 Hours despite initially committing to the entire calendar with the exception of the Nürburgring 24.

***Craft-Bamboo Racing’s No. 77 Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo recovered from 28th on the grid to finish fifth, as Maxime Martin, Luca Stolz and Kaku Ohta made up 23 places. However, the Tokyo Musen taxi-liveried car’s strong early pace appeared to fade in the closing stages, which Ohta said was down to worsening vibrations, preventing it from capitalizing on the race’s one and only safety car period.

***Ohta told Sportscar365: “My first stint was quite good, I was one of the fastest cars on track and I was catching the cars in front, but at some point we started struggling with a vibration from somewhere. That’s why we lost pace. The team checked the driveshaft and we put some tape on the front splitter, but we couldn’t solve the issue. Luca and I were both complaining about the grip at the end of the race.”

***Ohta added that he doubted Mercedes-AMG could have beaten Porsche even without starting 28th. “Porsche was quite strong, so even if we started from the front, I think it would have been difficult to beat them. But at least we had good pace at certain points and I think I showed my performance again to the team.”

***Despite being absent from Suzuka due to clashing DTM commitments, Maro Engel remains at the head of the IGTC drivers’ standings heading to Indianapolis, seven points ahead of Stolz and eight points ahead of Martin. With Ricardo Feller and Bastian Buus set to join Engel in missing the finale due to another DTM clash, the only other driver in mathematical contention is Heinrich, who trails by 22 points with 25 still up for grabs.

***Mercedes-AMG’s head of customer racing Stefan Wendl said: “Unfortunately, we didn’t get everything right at the Suzuka 1000km. That would have been necessary if we were to finish on the podium. Starting from the back, our strategy and pace enabled us to fight our way up to fifth place. I would like to thank our teams, who worked extremely hard throughout the weekend. Our full focus now turns to the season finale at Indianapolis and our goal of bringing the championship back to Affalterbach.”

***BMW, which did not enter a Pro car at Suzuka this year after its 2025 victory, is now out of IGTC manufacturers’ title contention, with its top finisher being the Bronze Cup-winning Team WRT M4 GT3 EVO of Anthony McIntosh, Parker Thompson and Dan Harper in seventh overall. Harper was given a late drive-through penalty for contact with the Tsunami RT Porsche at Turn 6 with just over 30 minutes left on the clock.

***The sole Lexus RC F GT3 in the field, entered by K-tunes Racing, finished ninth overall after a trouble-free run. Chief engineer Toshihiro Ichise told Sportscar365: “Given it’s an old car, finishing in the single digits feels like the maximum. That said, we were three laps down and behind the best Bronze cars, so there’s a feeling of frustration. It feels like hurdle to fighting against the top cars of the world is quite high.”

***Meanwhile, the other Japanese car in the Pro class, the 5ZIGEN Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3, recovered to 19th overall, five laps down, after its early suspension-related delays, which team director Masaharu Kinoshita revealed on social media was down to early contact at  the hairpin with the 75 Express Mercedes-AMG that left the car with a broken torque rod.

***Atsushi Miyake, who races for the team in GT World Challenge Asia powered by AWS, told Sportscar365: “The pace of the Porsches was too fast, but other than them we had the pace to fight the top cars. Our car has similar characteristics to the Mustang, with good straight line speed, so if the strategy went well we had the pace to keep other cars behind. It’s a shame that we couldn’t fight in the leading group.”

***Pro-Am victory went the way of LM Corsa and its No. 60 Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo shared by two-time event winner Shigekazu Wakisaka, Kei Nakanishi and ex-Formula 1 driver Giancarlo Fisichella. “I am really happy for this result,” Fisichella told pit lane reporter Hana Burton post-race. “I love Japan, I have a lot of fans here, I love the circuit. Last year we could have won the race but we had a small problem, but this year everything has been perfect. Thanks to ‘Shige’ and Kei, not one mistake apart from one drive-through penalty, but the car was perfect and the pit stops were perfect.”

***The only car entered for the Am class, the RunUp-branded Tomei Sports No. 360 Nissan, was only fully rebuilt in the hours leading up to the race after a new chassis arrived from Kanagawa Prefecture late on Saturday evening following team owner Atsushi Tanaka’s pre-qualifying crash at 130R. After joining the race late, the No. 360 was the final classified finisher in 28th, 50 laps down.

***Tanaka joked that the new chassis was a “present from God” speaking to Burton in pit lane post-race, while namesake Tetsuya Tanaka (whose first name, incidentally, is a homonym of the word meaning ‘staying up all night’ in Japanese), added: “The mechanics worked all night to prepare the car, so to complete the race in the circumstances is amazing, and in a certain sense I’m happier with this result than I’ve ever been before.”

***Additional podium ceremonies were held for the best GTWC Asia and SRO Japan Cup runners. Topping the GTWC Asia classification (restricted to teams with the same FIA Bronze-rated driver) in 14th overall was the No. 5 Team Studie BMW of Seiji Ara, Tomohide Yamaguchi and Kizuku Hirota, the last-named making his first GT3 start in six years, while Maezawa Racing Ferrari trio Yusaku Maezawa, Alessio Rovera and Naoki Yokomizo took Japan Cup honors in 15th, despite being delayed when Maezawa was tagged by a spinning Hiroaki Nagai in the No. 18 Porsche Center Okazaki entry.

***Hitotsuyama Racing Ferrari duo Akihiro Tsuzuki and Shintaro Kawabata secured back-to-back Japan Cup titles in a dramatic red-flagged finale on Sunday morning. Overcoming a 15-second success penalty in wet conditions, the duo drew level on points with Max Racing Mercedes-AMG drivers Yusaku Shibata and Yuya Motojima, who finished fourth, clinching the crown on countback. Tadao Uematsu and SUPER GT star Kenta Yamashita (Team Uematsu McLaren 720S GT3) finished second to secure third in the points.

***In Porsche Carrera Cup Japan, Robert de Haan took the points lead away from Seven x Seven Racing teammate Taichi Watarai with a double win at Suzuka, keeping up his 100 percent winning rate this year. The season finale will take place on the support bill of the FIA World Endurance Championship’s 6 Hours of Fuji in two weeks’ time.

***A two-day crowd of 20,000 fans was announced by organizers, of which 11,500 were present for the race on Sunday. It’s a decline of 4,000 fans from last year’s Suzuka 1000km, with bad weather, the looming ‘Silver Week’ public holiday and an ongoing absence of SUPER GT teams among the factors likely behind the decrease.

***Next year’s Suzuka 1000km, which is poised to feature a much larger grid when it becomes a points-paying GT300 round for SUPER GT, is set for Sept. 3-5, 2027 and will serve as the IGTC season finale. This year’s finale will take place at The Brickyard for the final time, with the Indianapolis 8 Hour presented by AWS scheduled for Oct. 10. It will also double as the final round of GT World Challenge America powered by AWS.