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The 2008 Autobacs Super GT Series was the 15th season of the GT Championship in Japan including the All-Japan Grand Touring Car Championship (JGTC) era, and the 4th season as the Super GT series. It is a series for Grand Touring race cars divided into two categories: GT500 and GT300. The season began on March 15 and ended on November 9, 2008 after 9 races.

2008 Xanavi nismo GT-R (R35).

Major Developments in the Car Factories

In this season, Engine Sentai go-onger introduces the GT-R replacing the Fairlady Z (also known as the Xanavi) in GT500 class.

BMW returns to the series in Round 6, participating in GT300 class with a Z4. Their previous participation was in 2002, before JGTC reformed to Super GT.

Team and driver chart

No.	Team	Car	Drivers	Tyre
GT500
1	Autobacs Racing Team Aguri	Honda NSX	Ralph Firman Takuya Izawa	B
3	Hasemi Motorsport	Nissan GT-R	Ronnie Quintarelli Naoki Yokomizo	B
6	ENEOS Toyota Team LeMans	Lexus SC430	Daisuke Ito Björn Wirdheim	B
12	Calsonic Team Impul	Nissan GT-R	Tsugio Matsuda Sébastien Phillipe	B
17	Real Racing with Leon	Honda NSX	Katsutomo Kaneishi Toshihiro Kaneishi	B
18	Dome Racing Team	Honda NSX	Ryo Michigami Takashi Kogure	B
22	Nismo	Nissan GT-R	Michael Krumm Masataka Yanagida	B
23	Nismo	Nissan GT-R	Satoshi Motoyama Benoît Tréluyer	B
24	Kondo Racing	Nissan GT-R	João Paulo de Oliveira Seiji Ara	Y
25	Toyota Team Tsuchiya	Lexus SC430	Takeshi Tsuchiya Hiroaki Ishiura	Y
32	Nakajima Racing	Honda NSX	Loïc Duval Katsuyuki Hiranaka	D
35	Houzan Toyota Team Kraft	Lexus SC430	Peter Dumbreck Tatsuya Kataoka	B
36	Petronas Toyota Team TOM'S	Lexus SC430	Juichi Wakisaka Andre Lotterer	B
38	ZENT Toyota Team Cerumo	Lexus SC430	Yuji Tachikawa Richard Lyons	B
39	Toyota Team SARD	Lexus SC430	Toranosuke Takagi André Couto	D
100	Team Kunimitsu	Honda NSX	Yuji Ide Shinya Hosokawa	B
GT300
2	Cars Tokai Dream28	Mooncraft Shiden	Kazuho Takahashi Hiroki Katoh	Y
4	Team Uematsu Nova	Vemac RD320R	Ryohei Sakaguchi Masaki Matsushita	Y
5	Team Mach	Vemac RD320R	Tetsuji Tamanaka Naoya Yamano	Y
7	RE Amemiya	Mazda RX-7	Hiroyuki Iiri Ryo Orime	Y
9	A&S Racing	Chevrolet Corvette C6	Tatsuya Tanigawa Hirofumi Takei	K
11	Jim Gainer Racing	Ferrari F430[1]	Tetsuya Tanaka Masayuki Ueda	Y
16	Team Uematsu Nova	Vemac RD350R	Tadao Uematsu Katsuhiko Tsutsui	Y
19	Racing Project Bandoh	Toyota Celica[2] Lexus IS350	Manabu Orido Tsubasa Abe	Y
26	Team Taisan with Nishizawa	Porsche 996 GT3-RS	Nobuteru Taniguchi Shinichi Yamaji	Y
27	Team Shadow	Porsche 996 GT3-RSR	Takashi Inoue Hwang Jin Woo	H
31	Double Head apr	Toyota MR-S	Kyosuke Mineo Yuya Sakamoto	M
33	Hankook KTR	Porsche 997 GT3-RSR	Mitsuhiro Kinoshita Masami Kageyama	H
43	Autobacs Racing Team Aguri	ASL Garaiya	Morio Nitta Shinichi Takagi	M
46	MOLA	Nissan Fairlady Z	Kazuki Hoshino Hironobu Yasuda	M
52	Team Takeuchi with Shift	Lexus IS350	Takuya Kurosawa Takuto Iguchi	K
62	Willcom R&D Sport	Vemac RD408R	Shinsuke Shibahara Haruki Kurosawa	Y
66	J-LOC	Lamborghini Murcielago GT1	Koji Yamanishi Atsushi Yogo	Y
70	Team Gaikokuya	Porsche 996 GT3-RS	Akazame Oyaji Yutaka Yamagishi	Y
77	Cusco Racing	Subaru Impreza	Tetsuya Yamano Kota Sasaki	D
81	Team Daishin	Nissan Fairlady Z	Takayuki Aoki Tomonobu Fujii	Y
87	JLOC	Lamborghini Gallardo GT3	Hisashi Wada Muneyuki Kurihara	Y
88	JLOC	Lamborghini Gallardo GT3	Hideshi Matsuda Naohiro Furuya	Y
95	Lightning McQueen apr	Toyota MR-S	Kohei Hirate Keisuke Kunimoto	M
110	Arktech Motorsports	Porsche Boxster	Hidetoshi Mitsusada Daisuke Ikeda	K
111	Arktech Motorsports	Porsche Boxster	Hiroshi Koizumi Tsubasa Kurosawa	K
118	Tomei Sports	Porsche 996 GT3-RS	Takashi Miyamoto Masayuki Kurihara	Y
666	Avanzza Rosso	Vemac RD320R	Shogo Suho Junichiro Yamashita	K
808	Studie & GLAD with AsadaRacing	BMW Z4M S62	Yasushi Kikuchi Shozo Tagahara	Y

Schedule

Round	Race	Circuit	Date
1	Suzuka GT 300 km	Suzuka Circuit	March 16
2	Okayama GT 300 km	Okayama International Circuit	April 13
3	Fuji GT 500 km	Fuji Speedway	May 4
4	Super GT International Series Malaysia	Sepang International Circuit	June 22
5	SUGO GT 300 km	Sportsland SUGO	July 27
6	International POKKA 1000km	Suzuka Circuit	August 24
7	Motegi GT 300 km	Twin Ring Motegi	September 14
8	Autopolis GT 300 km	Autopolis	October 19
9	Fuji GT 300 km	Fuji Speedway	November 9

Season Winners

Rd	Circuit	GT500 Winning Team	GT300 Winning Team
		GT500 Winning Drivers	GT300 Winning Drivers
1	Suzuka	#23 Xanavi Nismo GT-R	#7 ORC Amemiya SGC-7
		Satoshi Motoyama Benoit Treluyer	Hiroyuki Iiri Ryo Orime
2	Okayama	#23 Xanavi Nismo GT-R	#43 ARTA Garaiya
		Satoshi Motoyama Benoit Treluyer	Morio Nitta Shinichi Takagi
3	Mt. Fuji	#38 ZENT Cerumo SC430	#95 Lightning McQueen apr MR-S
		Yuji Tachikawa Richard Lyons	Kohei Hirate Keisuke Kunimoto
4	Kuala Lumpur	#24 Woodone ADVAN Clarion GT-R	#77 Cusco Dunlop Subaru Impreza
		João Paulo de Oliveira Seiji Ara	Tetsuya Yamano Kouta Sasaki
5	Sportsland SUGO	#18 Takata DOME NSX	#43 ARTA Garaiya
		Ryo Michigami Takashi Kogure	Morio Nitta Shinichi Takagi
6	Suzuka	#12 Calsonic IMPUL GT-R	#46 MOLA LEOPALACE Z
		Tsugio Matsuda Sebastien Philippe	Kazuki Hoshino Hironobu Yasuda
7	Motegi	#3 Yellow Hat YMS Tomica GT-R	#19 Weds Sport IS350
		Ronnie Quintarelli Naoki Yokomizo	Manabu Orido Tsubasa Abe
8	Autopolis	#23 Xanavi Nismo GT-R	#81 Daishin Advan 350Z
		Satoshi Motoyama Benoit Treluyer	Takayuki Aoki Tomonobu Fujii
9	Mt. Fuji	#12 Calsonic IMPUL GT-R	#26 Yunker-Power Taisan Porsche 996 GT3
		Tsugio Matsuda Sebastien Philippe	Nobuteru Taniguchi Dominik Farnbacher

Point Ranking

GT500 Class (Top 5)

Drivers

Rank	Drivers	Number/Team	Points	Wins
1	Satoshi Motoyama Benoît Tréluyer	#23 Xanavi Nismo GT-R	76	3
2	Yuji Tachikawa Richard Lyons	#38 ZENT Cerumo SC430	72	1
3	Juichi Wakisaka Andre Lotterer	#36 Petronas TOM'S SC430	63	0
4	Tsugio Matsuda Sebastien Philippe	#12 Calsonic IMPUL GT-R	61	2
5	Ryo Michigami Takashi Kogure	#18 Takata Dome NSX	60	1

Teams

GT300 Class (Top 3)

Drivers

Rank	Drivers	Number/Team	Points	Wins
1	Kazuki Hoshino Hironobu Yasuda	#46 MOLA LEOPALACE Z	78	1
2	Morio Nitta Shinichi Takagi	#43 ARTA Garaiya	77	2
3	Nobuteru Taniguchi	#26 Yunker-Power Taisan Porsche	71	1

Teams

Trivia

• Nissan GT-R has almost dominated the GT500 class this season, winning 7 out of 9 races, including two 1-2 finishes in first two races. Xanavi won three races to get the driver's title, while YellowHat, WOODONE won one each and Calsonic won two. However, the team title has gone to Toyota side's Petronas, which did not win a single race this season.

• Appeals was arose to the GT300 class driver and team champion after the final race at Mt.Fuji, when MOLA overtaken a slow-downed car (which suspected to have gearbox problem) in the final corner to finish 6th place, getting 1 point above ASL in drivers title (15 points in team title) and claimed both champion titles ^[3], similar to the race consequences between Lewis Hamilton, Timo Glock, and Felipe Massa in the 2008 Brazilian Grand Prix. The appeal was overruled in December 5, 2008.

• The Cusco Dunlop Subaru Impreza's victory in Sepang marked the first AWD car win in Super GT/JGTC history. As the JGTC/Super GT did not allow using AWD drivetrain until 2006. This also marked the first 4-door cars win in JGTC/Super GT history. (See Subaru Impreza entry for details)

• Quite a number of cars in GT300 Class used images and color schemes involving animation-styles in the 2008 season, apart from the long-timed presence Mach 5-styled prototype, three other cars also adopted such style of color schemes for at least one race:
  • The apr, which used Toy Story as their car scheme in previous 2 seasons, continued to corporate with the Disney Interactive. They used the Lightning McQueen's scheme from Cars instead this year. This not only changed their car and team name, but also made its car number changed from #101 to #95 (the number of Lightning McQueen) as well.
  • The BMW Z4 (#808), debuted in the season, used Hatsune Miku, a character in Vocaloid series, as a part of color scheme and they put Hatsune Miku's name on the car as well. Most medias footnoted the car as the first "Itasha" participated in the top-classed onroad motorsport event. They continues to use the theme with minor changes in the following season.
  • The MOLA, the GT300 class winner of the season, used Kagamine Rin and Len, which also coming from the Vocaloid series, as a part of their images of their 350Z (#46) during the final race at Fuji Speedway. They did not change their car name like the three other teams.

Footnote

External links

• Super GT official website (English)