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 (JGTC) is a grand touring car racing series that began in 1993. Originally titled as the , the series was renamed to Super GT in 2005. It was the top level of sports car racing in Japan. The series was s ...

(JGTC) era and the fifth season as the

Super GT Super GT (stylized as SUPER GT) is a sports car racing series that began in 1993. Launched as the , generally referred to as the All Japan Grand Touring Car Championship (JGTC), the series was renamed to Super GT in 2005. It is the top level of ...

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 Sports prototype, prototype cars and also featured cars that were eligible for touring car racin ...

. The season opener on March 22, was moved to

Okayama is the prefectural capital, capital Cities of Japan, city of Okayama Prefecture in the Chūgoku region of Japan. The Okayama metropolitan area, centered around the city, has the largest urban employment zone in the Chugoku region of western J ...

, due to the continued renovation of Suzuka in preparation for the

2009 Japanese Grand Prix The 2009 Japanese Grand Prix (formally the 2009 Formula 1 Fuji Television Japanese Grand Prix) was the fifteenth round of the 2009 FIA Formula One World Championship. The race was held at the Suzuka Circuit on 4 October 2009. Sebastian Vettel of ...

. The season finale on November 8 also was moved to Motegi, instead of Fuji. Due to the worldwide economic crisis, race weekends were two days instead of three.

André Lotterer André Lotterer (born 19 November 1981) is a German racing driver, who most recently competed in the FIA World Endurance Championship for Porsche in motorsport, Porsche. In formula racing, Lotterer competed in Formula One at the in , and Formu ...

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 Super GT#GT500, GT500 category. Prior to the 1998 Formula One World Championship , 1998 Formula One season he tested for the Jordan Grand ...

claimed the GT500 title in the

Petronas Petroliam Nasional Berhad, commonly known as PETRONAS (stylised in all caps), is a Malaysian Multinational corporation, multinational petroleum, oil and natural gas, gas company headquartered in Kuala Lumpur. Established in 1974, it is a lega ...

TOM'S is an automotive aftermarket parts manufacturer and tuner of Toyota and Lexus vehicles, as well as a factory-backed racing team. The TOM'S head office is located in Tokyo, Japan. TOM'S most prominently produces aftermarket parts for current ...

Lexus SC430. The team also won their respective teams title.

Manabu Orido is a Japanese professional racing driver. He currently competes in the Super GT series for Team apr Racing driving a Toyota 86#Super GT, Toyota GR86 GT300, in the Super Taikyu Series, Super Taikyu series driving an Aston Martin Vantage (2018)#G ...

and

Tatsuya Kataoka is a Japanese racing driver. He currently competes in the Super GT Super GT (stylized as SUPER GT) is a sports car racing series that began in 1993. Launched as the , generally referred to as the All Japan Grand Touring Car Championship (J ...

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 organizatio ...

IS350 by three points from

Nobuteru Taniguchi is a Japanese racing driver and drifting (motorsport), drifting driver who currently competes in the Super GT racing series. Taniguchi is commonly nicknamed "NOB" (first three letters from his name, meaning "No One Better") or "The Pimp" as a ref ...

and

Ryo Orime is a professional race car driver. Complete Super GT Results References 1982 births Living people Japanese racing drivers Japanese Formula 3 Championship drivers Super GT drivers {{Japan-autoracing-bio-stub KCMG drivers Formula Ni ...

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 held primarily in Japan. It is considered to be the pinnacle of single-seater racing in Japan or Asia as a whole, making it one of the top motorsport series in the region. The s ...

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 from 2004 to 2005, to allow a racing variant to compete in the FIA GT Championship. The car entered production in 2004, with ...

did participate the pre-season test in 2006 season but withdraw from the series later). The DBR9 only ran at the first round at

and the two rounds at Fuji, 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 The Toyota MR2 is a line of two-seater, mid-engined, rear-wheel-drive sports cars, manufactured in Japan and marketed globally by Toyota from 1984 until 2007 over three generations: W10 (1984–1989), W20 (1989–1999) and W30 (1999–2007). It ...

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 The is a series of compact cars (formerly subcompact) manufactured and marketed globally by the Japanese automaker Toyota Motor Corporation. Introduced in 1966, the Corolla was the best-selling car worldwide by 1974 and has been one of the bes ...

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 g ...

), 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 R&D Sport is a Japanese racing team currently competing in the Super GT series. Racing history R&D Sport was created in 1991 as a race car management, maintenance, and manufacturing company and expanded to JGTC, racing under the company's own ...

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 The Mosler MT900 is a high performance sports car built by now-defunct American automotive manufacturer Mosler Automotive. Three submodels were produced. The MT900R was a racing version of the MT900. The basic car was updated as the MT900S for ...

. 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:

Teams' standings

GT300 Drivers

;Scoring system:

GT300 Teams' standings

References

External links

Super GT official website
{{Super GT seasons

2009 2009 was designated as the International Year of Astronomy by the United Nations to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Galileo Galilei's first known astronomical studies with a telescope and the publication of Astronomia Nova by Joha ...