A landmark announcement was made today from Suzuka Circuit at the Suzuka Circuit Motorsports Fan Appreciation Day, as Japan’s Great Race, the International Suzuka 1000km, will evolve into the Suzuka 10 Hour Endurance Race from 2018 onwards.
With the change in distance also comes the bittersweet announcement that the summer endurance race at Suzuka will no longer serve as the crown jewel event of the Autobacs Super GT Series after the 2017 season.
Mobilityland Corporation president Susumu Yamashita, and Stéphane Ratel of the Stéphane Ratel Organisation (SRO) were on hand at Suzuka to make the big announcement of the newest round of the SRO Intercontinental GT Challenge, which will be organized by the SRO, and the GT Association, the promoter and sanctioning body of the Autobacs Super GT Series.
The 47th Suzuka 10 Hour Endurance Race will be promoted as a “dream race for all of the best GT3 and GT300 cars in the world,” according to Suzuka president Yamashita, featuring the JAF-GT300 cars from Super GT, as well as the top FIA GT3 cars and teams from Super GT and the Super Taikyu Endurance Series.
To attract the top teams from around the GT3 racing world, such as the Blancpain GT Series and Pirelli World Challenge, the Suzuka 10 Hours will award a prize of 100 million Japanese Yen (¥100,000,000).
In its planning phases, the 47th Suzuka 10 Hours – the “47th edition” confirming its place in the lineage of the 1000km that has been run since 1966 – will be held from August 23rd to August 26th, 2018, with the 10 hour race to start at 10:30 AM on Sunday the 26th, and end at 8:30 PM the same day.
Yamashita says that the Suzuka 10 Hours will maintain the festive atmosphere of the Suzuka 1000km, with the aim of cultivating it at a larger scale, one that holds new value for the entrants, the fans, and everyone else involved.
The SRO Intercontinental GT Challenge, launched in 2016, is the premier series of international GT3 endurance racing. Its crown jewel events include the 24 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium, the Sepang 12 Hours in Malaysia, and the Bathurst 12 Hour race in Australia. This year, an eight-hour race at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in the United States was added to the calendar.
As for Super GT at Suzuka, circuit president Yamashita made it clear that the series will continue to host a race at Suzuka, as it has every year since 1995.
Yamashita said that he wants to host a new Super GT event at the circuit, at a new date and distance, with an announcement of the new event to come some time before the 46th -and final – running of the Suzuka 1000km as we know it today.
This story to be updated.
