Weekend Recap: Kunimoto takes Super Formula championship lead at Okayama

This weekend saw many of the Autobacs Super GT Series’ top stars competing in events around the world, mostly at the Okayama International Circuit where Super Formula held its first of two double-header weekends of the season.

The weekend saw two first-time winners from as many races, as future McLaren Honda Formula 1 driver Stoffel Vandoorne and Toyota rising star Yuji Kunimoto won their first career Super Formula races, with Kunimoto moving into a comfortable lead in the championship on the strength of two podium finishes – and on the weekend of his 26th birthday, no less!

Commentary: A Suzuka 1000km to remember

The 45th International Suzuka 1000km isn’t just another stop on the Super GT calendar. It’s a race with 50 years of history and tradition, intersecting so many eras of Japanese and International-level motorsport.

It was billed to be the most important race in the championship. It proved to be exactly that, in so many ways.

Moment of Zent: Lexus Team Cerumo win dramatic 45th Suzuka 1000km

The culmination of a furious opening stint, commanding drives at the front, a dramatic and somewhat controversial pass for the lead, and a perfectly executed final pit stop, Lexus Team ZENT Cerumo and drivers Yuji Tachikawa and Hiroaki Ishiura scored a memorable overall victory in the 45th International Suzuka 1000km endurance race, the crown jewel of the Autobacs Super GT Series calendar.

The #38 ZENT Cerumo RC-F battled the #36 au TOM’s RC-F of Daisuke Ito and Nick Cassidy throughout most of the race, swapping the lead several times including a hotly debated pass by Tachikawa on lap 129, but in the end it was the ZENT team and their red Lexus who led home a 1-2 finish for the manufacturer and scored their first win of 2016.

Defending Suzuka champions Ito, Rossiter on a collision course to history

Daisuke Ito and James Rossiter are on the cusp of making history in this year’s 45th International Suzuka 1000km.

Together, they won the crown jewel of the Autobacs Super GT Series calendar one year ago. But they return to Suzuka this year on opposite sides of the Lexus Team TOM’s garage – Ito in the #36 au TOM’s RC-F, Rossiter now in the #37 KeePer TOM’s RC-F.

Both men looking to accomplish a historic milestone of their own in the great race, and both knowing that their greatest challengers might be each other.