SUPER GT set to increase number of 450km races for 2023
SUPER GT will increase the number of 450km races for the 2023 season, Motorsport.com has learned.
The 450km format was successfully tried out at three events last year and received praise for providing a wide range of strategy options that resulted in more interesting races than the standard 300km distance.
Both the Fuji races and the August race at Suzuka were run over 450km in 2022, with the remaining five events remaining at regular length.
For this year’s calendar, however, the first Suzuka date at the beginning of June and the penultimate race in Autopolis at 450 km are also scheduled. Okayama, Sugo and the Motegi final are expected to remain at 300km.
That means the 2023 season is expected to cover 3150km of racing – the highest number since 2017, when the Suzuka 1000km was last held.
Last year GTA Chairman Masaaki Bandoh raised the prospect of slightly increasing the 450km distance for last year’s longer races, but that idea seems to have been shelved for now.
Likewise, the provision in the sporting regulations for awarding extra points for races over 700 km (or four hours), which was included in the regulations last year, will remain unused.
Sporting regulations tweaked after controversy in 2022
The recently published 2023 version of the Sporting Regulations contains several updates, some of which were added in response to specific controversies over the last year.
One involved Nissan driver Mitsunori Takaboshi’s race-stop crash on the second lap at Fuji last year while fighting for the lead in Yuhi Sekiguchi’s Toyota.
Sekiguchi was believed to have contributed to the accident by using the slipstream of a slow-moving car down the long main straight and giving Takaboshi no time to react as he ducked out of tow at the last moment – setting off the accident that ended the Nissan caught drivers in the hospital.
Although Sekiguchi was not officially held accountable, the SUPER GT organizers conceded that the rules needed to be tightened to prevent similar incidents in the future.
Two new items have been added to the list of actions considered dangerous under SUPER GT’s Moral Hazard Prevention System, which awards drivers penalty points for unsafe driving.
These are “Behaviour that puts another car in danger because of neglect of safety precautions when a vehicle is driving slowly due to breakdown” and “Following a vehicle that has indicated an intention to pit stop or is driving due to delay car breaks down”.
In addition, each driver who circulates slowly due to car problems is now required to “notify the following cars by flashing the danger or the turn signal, and take safety measures so as not to obstruct other cars on the route.”
The driver of the slow-moving car in the case of Takaboshi’s accident, Arnage Racing’s Takeshi Suehiro, was not credited with doing so, which was one of the reasons Sekiguchi was not penalized in the Fuji incident.
Yellow track regulations were also adjusted in the wake of last year’s Autopolis race, where two GT500 cars, the Real Racing Honda and Racing Project Bandoh Toyota, received penalties for overtaking during the 10-second countdown for the yellow track escaped.
Previously the procedure was such that the FCY panels were shown at the start of the countdown and that the yellow flags were waved when the countdown ended to indicate the start of the 80 km/h speed limit.
From this season, the yellow flags will be waved at the start of the countdown – a clear sign of the no-overtaking ban – while the FCY panels themselves will only be shown once the countdown has ended.