It’s that time of year again in the Japanese auto racing season. The cars themselves are silent, but the discussion of the 2020 Autobacs Super GT Series to come is anything but. Welcome to another round of the domestic racing Stove League, the “Silly Season” by another name, the winter period where the pieces of the puzzle that is the 2020 Super GT field start to take shape.
Baseball’s own Stove League is already at full burn, where teams negotiate trades and attempt to sign high-dollar free agents. After battling for Major League Baseball’s World Series, ace pitcher Stephen Strasburg just signed a record-breaking deal to remain with the championship-winning Washington Nationals. Days later, his rival from the Houston Astros, Gerrit Cole, eclipsed Strasbourg’s deal with his own record-setting contract upon joining the New York Yankees.
In Super GT, the money is never a talking point, rather the arrangement of the teams and drivers representing the big three manufacturers in GT500: Toyota, Honda, and Nissan. Drivers changing teams, young drivers stepping up from GT300 or stepping in from elsewhere, and old veterans fighting to keep their places in the most competitive class in sports car racing.
Using the information from the latest issue of auto sport Magazine (Volume 1521: “Solving the Mystery of 51 Seats”), as well as the reporting from Motorsport.com contributors such as Jamie Klein, here is Super GT World’s guide to how the GT500 field might look in 2020 – and it starts with the biggest story of the off-season to date.
Continue reading 2019-20 Super GT Stove League: First Strike
