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SuperGT 2009: Round 5 Full Race Report and High Res Images
Here’s the full official Nissan press release pertaining to the win over the weekend at Sugo Sportsland for round five of the SuperGT 2009 championship season. We’ve also posted a gallery of the high res images courtesy of Nissan Motors Japan for rounds 4 and 5 of the 2009 season which were both wins for the GT-R.
Enjoy and don’t forget to follow the Read More link to see the rest of the report and galleries…
NISSAN GT-R takes 4th victory of the season
– SUPER GT 2009 Round 5 Race Report –July 26th, Sportsland SUGO racing course (Murata town, Miyagi prefecture)
Round 5 of SUPER GT was decided in this part of the country by the MOTUL AUTECH GT-R (#1 – Satoshi Motoyama / Benoit Treluyer) who, having started from sixth on the grid, moved to the front in the later stages of the 81-lap event to claim their second victory of the season. With this result, the NISSAN GT-R has now taken 4 wins from 5 races this year.continues…
Source: Nissan
SuperGT 2009: MOTUL Nismo GT-R Wins at SUGO for Round 5
SuperGT is back in Japan for round five for the 2009 championship season and the Nissan GT-R is proving again to be an unstoppable competitor after the #1 MOTUL Nismo GT-R finished in first place for Sunday’s race. The win comes after starting in 8th on the grid after a penalty incurred during qualifying for passing under yellow flag conditions.
The race started under fine skies and with the #3 Hasemi Tomica Ebbro GT-R on pole position. Early on in the race multiple GT-Rs were contending for the top positions but the rain had something to say about this around lap 25 of the 81 lap race. By lap 33 the rain had increased and teams were forced to pit for a tire change.
The #1 MOTUL Nismo GT-R exited the pit in good position and was able to continue to battle for the first two finishing places. Then, when the track began to dry around lap 60 they opened the taps and put the win beyond doubt.
This big weekend of racing has completely turned Nismo’s 2009 championship season around and moved them from 6th on the team rankings to 1st place by 5 points! Kondo racing, who were leading last round, are now bumped down to third in the team rankings with 50 points.
Link: SuperGT Official Site
SuperGT 2009: Hasemi Tomica Ebbro Nissan GT-R Wins Round 4 in Malaysia
The third Nissan GT-R win for SuperGT season 2009 from just four starts today as the #3 Hasemi Racing Tomica Ebbro GT500 Nissan GT-R is victorious at Sepang Circuit, Malaysia. They qualified 2nd on the grid and capitalized on a technical issue suffered by the #1 MOTUL Autech GT-R which forced it to pit.
Back in 5th place was the next best GT-R finisher, the #24 HIS ADVAN Kondo Racing entrant with earning 9 points for this round. The #12 IMPUL Calsonic GT-R came in just two places back in 7th followed by the #1 MOTUL Autech GT-R in 8th.
Congratulations to Hasemi racing, this win bumps them well up the championship rankings into 8th spot. The 9 points scored by Kondo Racing however helps them secure their championship lead with 49 points overall. The next best placed GT-R fielding team this year is Nismo back in 6th spot now with 33 points.
Five more rounds in the season so there’s still time for them to make their comeback for a back to back championship victory, although it does seem like a tough ask.
SuperGT 2009: MOTUL AUTECH GT-R on Pole for Round 4 at Sepang
Finally another weekend of GT-R motorsports has kicked off, firstly qualifying for SuperGT Series 2009 round 4 at Sepang Circuit in Malaysia. After a too long, 6 week break between round 3 and this weekend, we get to see the GT500 Nissan GT-Rs doing what they do best – that is – grabbing pole position during qualifying.
It’s good news for the #1 MOTUL Autech GT-R as they’ve managed just that with a best lap of 1:58.124 in the heated SuperLap qualifier round. Also, even more good news for Hasemi Racing with their #3 Tomica EBBRO GT-R in 2nd spot on the grid after setting a best lap just hundreths of a second away from first at 1:58.195.
Back in 7th places we see the #24 HIS ADVAN Kondo Racing GT-R with the #12 IMPUL Calsonic GT-R back in 10th place wrapping up the last of the GT-Rs.
With wet weather sitting in later in the day today, who knows what tomorrow will bring and teams will need to be ready for anything.
Gran Turismo 5 E3 Movie Plus More Video Game Goodness
A couple of exciting new tidbits of information regarding the latest upcoming release in the long line of Grant Turismo games. While we’ve all been playing the hell out of GT5 Prologue, it’s feeling more and more limited these days.
GT5 promises to add a lot more for GT-R fans though including the GT500 cars from the SuperGT 2008 series. Unfortunately, exactly how long we have to wait is still unknown as GT5’s release date is not set yet.
Sony and Polyphony also announced a version of Gran Turismo you can put in your pocket with the PSP version, called GT Mobile, to be released later this year. This version will contain the tracks seen in GT4 plus the GT-R. This means you can be tearing up the Nurburgring Nordschleife in your R35 GT-R on your train ride to work.
In other video game GT-R related news, Need for Speed SHIFT promises to be the best NFS game yet. The trailer has quite a bit of footage of a stickered up GT-R SpecV on the track. Will be good to see how it turns out.
Link: Discuss this over @ NAGTROC
Link: You can download the GT5 HD Movie at Gran-Turismo.com
Screenshots: Courtesy of GTPlanet.net
Ebbro Show Range of 2009 Nissan GT-R Models at Shizuoka
The Shizuoka Hobby Show, an annual event where model makers show off their latest and future creations, finished up last weekend and today I spotted these photos of Ebbro’s upcoming 2009 range of 1/43rd scale Nissan GT-R models. Set for a June release, the SuperGT GT500 GT-Rs of all four teams in their 2009 specification aero and livery are looking good. I have the Ebbro 2008 SuperGT cars and the quality of them at this scale is top shelf.
We can also see that the FIA GT Test car in both all carbon finish and final 2009 FIA championship season livery will be released. This is set to June and may be a tough one to get a hold of as pre-orders are filling up and production may be limited.
Finally the GT-R SpecV models were shown and should be available in June as well, while they look good I think the HPI SpecV models look slightly better. Unfortunately HPI SpecV model will be four times more expensive at 16,500 yen versus the 4,000 yen expected for the Ebbro version.
Many of these models are available for pre-order already from certain Japanese hobby stockists, I always rely on Hobby Link Japan for all of these and the pre-orders.
Link: Hobby Link Japan – Ebbro GT-R Models
Source: via Yahoo Japan Blogs
SuperGT 2009 Round 4 – Sepang Circuit, Malaysia – Coming Up Fast
In the Super Autobacs International SuperGT 2009 Series, round 4 at Sepang Circuit is the only round that actually qualifies for the international bit. I know we have a load of readers and GT-R fans in Malaysia and Singapore so here’s a very early reminder to get your tickets and get set for the GT500 action.
The race is on the weekend of the 20th and 21st of June with the final race on the Sunday and qualifying on the Saturday. The GT-R will be looking for a repeat performance from last year when the Woodone ADVAN Clarion #24 GT500 GT-R finished in first with the Nismo MOTUL Autech #22 GT-R close behind in second.
If anyone is up for a GT-R road trip from Singapore let me know!
Thanks to Marianah from Singapura Auto for the reminder.
SuperGT 2009: Round 3 Full Report and High Res Photos Gallery
Courtesy of Nissan, enjoy these huge wallpaper size high res images from the most recent round of the SuperGT 2009 championship series at Fuji Speedway. Fuji is a fantastic race circuit for taking great photos like the above.
Check out the rest in the gallery below and hit up the read more link for the race report.
Source: Nissan
SuperGT 2009: Nissan GT-R on Pole for Round 3 at Fuji Speedway
It’s Golden Week so the final of round three of SuperGT championship 2009 will be held on Monday. That means today was qualifying and what a qualifying it was for the teams fielding GT500 spec Nissan GT-Rs this year. Each team managed a spot in the Super Lap qualifying round with the #1 Nismo MOTUL Autech GT-R scoring pole position with the #12 IMPUL Calsonic Nissan GT-R not far behind in fourth grid position.
Team Hasemi’s #3 TOMICA EBBRO Nissan GT-R will start the race from 7th on the grid and Kondo Racing’s #24 HIS ADVAN Nissan GT-R just behind in 8th spot.
Don’t forget that you can now checkout the full SuperGT races on GTRBlogTV shortly after they run, you can checkout Round 2 from Suzuka Circuit online right now. Beware it’s almost 3 hours of racing at about 1GB of video download though!
SuperGT 2009: Nissan GT-R Podium Finish at Suzuka
Not a dream day for the Nissan GT-R today at Suzuka Circuit for round 2 of the SuperGT 2009 series. Beginning the race on pole the MOTUL Autech #1 Nissan GT-R had a great start and fought hard to keep in front of the Toyotas and eventually began to build a lead.
The rest of the race consisted of MOTUL Autech GT-R leading in front with as much as a 13 second gap while the IMPUL Calsonic #12 GT-R ran a race of consistency in and out of third place.
With five laps remaining, when they seemed almost a sure thing to win, they suffered some trouble and weren’t able to maintain the pace. They were forced to concede the lead to the ZENT Cerumo SC430 which finished the race first. They were able to complete the race finishing in fourth position but were later penalised 27 seconds to result in a heart breaking 11th place finish.
Meanwhile, the IMPUL Calsonic #12 Nissan GT-R finished their consistent race with a third place, a solid points round for them which moves them into fourth position in the championship ranking. For the full race results click the Read More link below, otherwise enjoy the photo gallery from today’s SuperGT action.
Just two weeks until round 3 at Fuji Speedway, let’s hope the GT-R’s get back on top then.
Update: Couple of mistranslations corrected and full race report from Nissan added after the jump.
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