Click above for a huge, high-res gallery of Rd. 3 of the '08 SuperGT season.
After previous incarnations of the Nissan GT-R ran away with successive JGTC titles, Japan's GT Association decided to inflict "success ballast" on race winners in an attempt to level the playing field (i.e give Toyota and Honda a chance).
As the current GT-R race car is built to 2009 Super GT specifications, the GT-A handed it a weight penalty of 50kgs added right from the start of the season. After winning Round 1 in Suzuka car number 23 had to carry an additional 50kgs at Round 2 in Sugo, which it promptly won anyway. Then thanks to also setting numerous fastest laps and other speeding offenses it was deemed that Benoit Treluyer and Satoshi Motoyama's ride would have to port an massive 200ks (440lbs) of ballast at this weekend's race at Fuji Speedway.
That presents a couple of problems. Firstly, where the heck do you safely stow 200kgs of lead? And would the car meet GT-A regulations even if Nissan found a way to do it? The ruling body's compromise was to give the car a 115kg penalty and fit a stifling restrictor to the GT-R's air intake. That knocked 30kph off the GT-R's maximum velocity at the end of Fuji's 1.5km straight, and in the words of Benoit, "Gives us no chance at all."
Follow through the jump to find out if he was right, and to find out how Lightning McQueen faired in GT300 after qualifying on pole yesterday.
GT500
Three laps after the rolling start it was clear that Benoit's prediction was spot on. While Honda NSXs and Lexus SC430s battled for the lead, car number 23 was already slipping back towards the GT300 field rather than chasing down the leaders. Takashi Kogure had squeezed his Takata NSX on to pole, and managed to keep the lead until he spun on lap 22, gifting the lead to the Zent Cerumo Lexus SC430, first driven by Yuji Tachikawa, then by Richard Lyons after the second pit stop, then by Yuji again all the way to the checkered flag. Meanwhile, tactics worthy of Ron Dennis and Ross Brawn leap frogged Juichi Wakisaka and Andre Lotterer's SC430 from fifth to second over the 110 lap race.
1 38 ZENT CERUMO SC430 Y.Tachikawa/R.Lyons 110 3:02'28.036
2 36 ETRONAS TOM'S SC430 J.Wakisaka/A.Lotterer 110 0'13.882
3 18 TAKATA DOME NSX R.Michigami/T.Kogure 110 0'15.893
GT300
It takes a lot to drown out the sound of 30 Super GT cars wailing down a mile long straight at full chat, but several thousand Japanese school kids managed just that when rookie Lightning McQueen took the lead in the closing stages of the race after arch rival Chick Hicks the Cusco Subaru Impreza got called in to the pits, not once but twice for racing infractions. Recent returnee from Europe's GP2 championship Kohei Hirate had put in a masterful flying lap on super soft tires to seal pole position for McQueen on Saturday, but the team then gambled that the comparatively frugal 3.5-liter MR-S could manage all 500 kms with just one fuel stop and on two sets of hard rubber. Despite starting heavy, McQueen never dropped out of the top five, but the two drivers, who aren't much older than McQueen's fan base, didn't have it easy fighting first Porsches, then the Impreza and the Leopalace Z all the way to the flag.
1 95 Lightning McQueen apr MR-S K.Hirate/K.Kunimoto 101 3:02'34.661
2 46 MOLA LEOPALACE Z K.Hoshino/H.Yasuda 101 0'26.739
3 2 Privee KENZO Asset Shiden K.Takahashi/H.Katoh 101 0'44.019
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Mobius_1 @ May 5th 2008 10:24AM
WTF they might as well ban the GT-Rs, or start a new separate class for them. Amazing car, and I still can't understand how it is so fast (straight line and bends) yet so cheap (w/o markups, anyway) and despite its weight and whatever else. Amazing
hashiryu @ May 5th 2008 1:32PM
It can be so cheap because it shares it's platform with at least 4 other vehicles (albeit highly modified), has a motor that is a cut down, modified & re-tuned race engine and most of all because Nissan knows that with all the markups they won't get them sold at an MSRP of $100K
MooseMuffin @ May 5th 2008 10:42AM
First off, I was under the impression that the race gt-r had nearly nothing in common with the actual gt-r besides some body work.
Secondly, whats the point in punishing a car for winning?
John R @ May 5th 2008 3:09PM
I agree. It just means Toyota and Honda need to step it up.
tankd0g @ May 5th 2008 4:17PM
That's about $500 worth of lead. If the GT-A is supplying it, think of it as a bonus :)
tankd0g @ May 5th 2008 10:42AM
Might as well put a stock interior in it with a nice DVD system and big sub woofer box so they can rule the paddock area as well as the track.
Glenn @ May 5th 2008 10:50AM
If you dont punish it for winning and other manufacturers dont want to invest the money to develop a competative car then other manufacturers pull out of the racing series. You end up with a one make race no one cares about with a couple of privateer teams at the back of the pack with no chance of winning.
tankd0g @ May 5th 2008 10:54AM
You mean like DTM? Bring it.
why not the LS2LS7? @ May 5th 2008 11:52AM
DTM is an equalized series.
tankd0g @ May 5th 2008 4:25PM
Ballast has the opposite effect to what is intended in a factory backed series. Instead of lower costs, it increases them as the penalized team spends more money to overcome the increased weight. If forced to carry so much ballast that winning is not a possible regardless of the money thrown at the problem, the team quits. So you have a series who's pace is set by the slowest cars but a budget set by the top teams. Never has going slow cost so much as in DTM.
Slade @ May 5th 2008 10:50AM
I thought they had a GT-R class a few years ago? Because it dominated the scene.
Sean Morris @ May 5th 2008 10:53AM
Punishing a car for winning. Its called "rewards" weight in World Challenge. Its setup to try and keep costs down in series. If the cars win, they weigh more and they go slower.
Tries to keep the racing more competitive.
http://gtrusa.blogspot.com
halogenrepublic @ May 5th 2008 10:58AM
Give the winner a 100kg trophy for each race and require the race team to stow it inside the car.
why not the LS2LS7? @ May 5th 2008 11:50AM
Please autoblog, what's with the first paragraph?
Rewards weight is part of the rules in JGTC, as it is in many series. It's not new because Nissan was winning. And in fact, Nissan had to add rewards weight after each of the first two races and still won.
Rewards weight is there because of the reality of how difficult it is to equalize the performance of different cars. The series is equalized (like many others) because it keeps costs down, it essentially makes it impossible (or as much as possible) for any team to win every race and so in theory no team will overspend in order to try to do so.
Most racing is equalized. Hence the statement that most races are won by convincing the equalization board to change your equalization (give you a larger restrictor, more gas in the tank, reduced minimum weight).
You just as easily could have told this story about the Corvettes and Aston Martins in American LeMans in 2006. The Corvettes had won so much during the series in 2006 that they had to carry so much rewards weight that it was considered unsafe. It was causing the brakes to fail on the Corvette. So instead of adding weight to the Corvettes at this race IMSA subtracted weight from the Aston Martins. The Aston Martins ended up winning, but the automatic Le Mans berth was not given to them because the ACO pointed out that the Aston Martins were below the minimum weight required by the ACO for a GT1 class car due to the weight taken off. This was all despite the Corvettes having an extra 121 pounds at the start of the season because they had been so successful in the past.
For another interesting case, look at the last R8 win at Le Mans in 2005.
As alluded to in this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_24_Hours_of_Le_Mans
The R8 was penalized because it was an older design. Due to a new, smaller restrictor it was actually slower and had worse acceleration down the Mulsanne Straight than any other car in its class. It even was slower than many GT1 cars on straights (in these times of the Pratt & Miller Corvettes and Prodrive Aston Martins, the GT1 cars are typically faster than LMP2 cars at Le Mans). The R8s could be seen drafting the Astons and Corvettes out of the corners and on the long straights. When they did this, this allowed the R8s to compensate for their reduction in HP by reducing aero drag.
So the R8 managed to win despite not being the fastest car in the field, through reliability and efficient operations in the pits. Given how much more aerodynamic a LMP1 car is than a GT1 car, it almost certainly means the R8 wasn't even as powerful as the Corvettes and Astons.
In extreme cases there can even be changes to the base equalization (the part not based upon wins) to cars in the middle of the season. In 2004 in Speed World Challenge GT, the Cadillac CTS-Vs were adjusted after the first race. In the first race, the Cadillacs started 1-2, and the 2nd car (Max Angelelli I think) was spun on the first lap. Then at the back of the pack, Max drove the car through almost the entire field in less than half the race, and finished in 3rd, having clearly demonstrated the Cadillacs had far more HP than they should. The Cadillacs were then hit with a raft of rule changes, including fixing the driver's seat position, prohibiting development on the drivetrain and a reduction in the engine redline to a level below that of a stock showroom-bought CTS-V.
nagmashot @ May 5th 2008 1:38PM
exactly the same happens to Audi this season in the DTM...
weight penatlys are a way to make a race series more interesting to watch.
There is a complicated rule book about the car weights in the DTM.
they have a basic MINIMUM car weight for each modelyear. They are not allowed to be lighter..
minimum weight
2008cars 1050kg
2007cars 1040kg
2006cars 1030kg
after each race they raise or lower the weight for a complete modelyear and manufactor..
ath the 3th race in Mugello
Audi 2008 1060kg
Audi 2007 1045kg
Audi 2006 1020kg
Mercedes 2008 1045kg
Mercedes 2007 1045kg
because of the strict regulations DTM cars are much closer to each other in perfromance as the japanese Super GT.
Weight handicap is something normal in GT and Touringcar racing since decades..and has nothing to do with the GT-R..
nagmashot @ May 5th 2008 1:40PM
exactly the same happens to Audi this season in the DTM...
weight penatlys are a way to make a race series more interesting to watch.
There is a complicated rule book about the car weights in the DTM.
they have a basic MINIMUM car weight for each modelyear. They are not allowed to be lighter..
minimum weight
2008cars 1050kg
2007cars 1040kg
2006cars 1030kg
after each race they raise or lower the weight for a complete modelyear and manufactor..
ath the 3th race in Mugello
Audi 2008 1060kg
Audi 2007 1045kg
Audi 2006 1020kg
Mercedes 2008 1045kg
Mercedes 2007 1045kg
because of the strict regulations DTM cars are much closer to each other in perfromance as the japanese Super GT.
Weight handicap is something normal in GT and Touring car racing since decades..and has nothing to do with the GT-R..
tuna @ May 5th 2008 12:12PM
Way to kill a racing series. I'm all for leveling the playing field some so that there is some overtaking for the fans, but this heavy handed approach does not encourage competition at all and provides no incentive for other teams to push their gear and strategy to be better.
For the rest of the season, they might as well put the drivers on identical tricycles.
why not the LS2LS7? @ May 5th 2008 12:26PM
n00b.
andybee @ May 5th 2008 12:28PM
as stated, rewards weight is nothing new. happens in BTCC and WTCC as well, but not to the same degree.
Not sure how common it is in Super GT, but the old series (JGTC) gave weight penalties to the all conquering 'Lark' McLaren F1 GTR's in the 90s. McLaren responded with big 'weight stickers' :)
Autoblog doesnt give you the full results, so here they are (remember GT-R's walked the first two rounds)
1. Zent SC430
2. Petronas SC430 + 14sec
3. Takata NSX + 16sec
4. Raybrig NSX +17sec
5. Kraft NSX +23sec
6. Eneos SC430 + 32sec
7. Epson NSX +63 sec
8. Advan SC430 + 1 lap
9. Calsonic GT-R +1 lap
10. Real NSX +1 lap
11. Advan GT-R + 1 lap
12. Motul GT-R + 1 lap
13 Denso SC430 + 2 laps
14 Xanavi GT-R + 3laps
DNF Yellohat Tomica GT-R
why not the LS2LS7? @ May 5th 2008 12:42PM
That lineup of cars reminds me of the later years of Trans Am. You've got absurdly old car chassis being recycled year to year. They're also (as mentioned) tube-frame cars like in Trans Am.