The ninth and final round of the 2008 Super GT series took place at Fuji Speedway. Even though the weather was rainy throughout the weekend, nearly 50,000 spectators visited the track to enjoy the high speed battles that concluded the season.

The weather worsened as the weekend approached. The first practice session on Friday was run on a wet to damp track surface under a cloudy sky. Although the surface dried up in the second session on that day, they were soaked with rain again on Saturday and the teams had to use wet tires throughout the two qualifying sessions.

As a result of the continuous tire development through competition with other tire manufacturers, ADVAN's wet tires performed remarkably well on the rain soaked surface. Consequently, the two ADVAN shoed cars in the GT500 class were able to proceed to the Super Lap session, after dominating the precedent session on Saturday morning.

Joan Paulo De Oliveira in WOODONE ADVAN Clarion GT-R registered the second fastest time despite a slight course off at Turn 1 and placed the car on the front row. It was one of the fastest cars in Friday's practice sessions and the result proved their continuing good form.

The rookie driver for ECLIPSE ADVAN SC430, Hiroaki Ishiura, had to settle for fourth because he warmed up the tires too early, causing them to overheat in the last sector of the decisive qualifying lap. But his sector times before that were quite good, which proved the performance of ADVAN's wet tires.

In the GT300 class, Manabu Orido in WedsSport IS350 qualified in third. Among the other ADVAN equipped drivers, Shinsuke Shibahara (WILLCOM ADVAN VEMAC 408R), Nobuteru Taniguchi (Yunker Power Taisan Porsche) and Hiroki Katoh (Privee KENZO Asset Shiden) took the upper ranks of the starting grid.

The race on Sunday was greatly affected by the changing weather and track conditions. It began raining just before the teams were taking their cars onto the starting grid and the surface started getting wet when all the cars sat on the grids.

This forced the teams to make difficult decisions as to what tires they should start with, the intermediates or slicks. For WOODONE ADVAN Clarion GT-R and ECLIPSE ADVAN SC430, both teams chose the intermediates, as with most of the other cars in their class. On the other hand, a number of the leading cars in the GT300 class opted for slick tires.

Because of the extremely low track temperature, the race started after an extra rolling lap. The track surface seemed to be drying gradually and it meant the cars started with slicks would have an advantage.

Helped by a timely call to change the intermediates to slicks, Oliveira was third and leading the pack of cars which started with wet tires, although the two cars with slicks from the start pulled away. But he was forced to make an unscheduled pit stop due to a mechanical problem in his transmission and lost a lot of ground.

ECLIPSE ADVAN SC430 started with veteran Takeshi Tsuchiya at the wheel and moved up to fourth after changing to slicks. Although he lost a few positions because of bad timing during a routine pit stop and the rain which came back in the middle phase of the race, the tenacious driving of Ishiura, who took over the car for the second stint, led to an eighth place finish to conclude his rookie season in the Super GT.

Orido and Taniguchi were in control of the GT300 class race in the beginning. The former moved up to second in the opening lap and then took the top slot on Lap 2, closely followed by the latter. Both drivers chose ADVAN's slick tires at the start but Orido opted for the softer compound while Taniguchi took the harder one for his Porsche. Because of this, the Porsche driver got closer and closer to Orido and finally overtook him on Lap 18, utilizing the superior straightaway speed of his car.

The top two, now led by Taniguchi, kept their positions and completed the first half of the race. Then, around the halfway point, the rain began to fall again and dampened the track surface.

Naturally, all cars visited their pits one after another to change drivers and put on wet tires and Taniguchi's Yunker Power Taisan Porsche got through it at the ideal time. After that, Dominick Farnbacher, who has come back to the Super GT to team up with Taniguchi after nearly a year of absence, further expanded the gap his teammate earned and took the checkered flag. The first win of the season for them was a great gift to their team principal, Yasutsune Chiba, as he revealed that this was to be the last race of his Taisan team.

WILLCOM ADVAN VEMAC 408R (Shinsuke Shibahara/Haruki Kurosawa) which also started with slick tires was running third before their pit stop and when all cars completed their routine stops, it was in second after passing WedsSport IS350. The ADVAN shoed Vemac ran steadily through the second stint and concluded their struggling season with the first podium finish of the season.

　[Result : the winner of the GT300 class]
"As we were out of title contention, our goal in this final round was just to win the race. So we decided not to be conservative and chose slick tires at the start. At the time of the formation lap, I thought the gamble would pay off because the track surface looked almost dry to me. I knew Orido (WedsSport IS350) started with softer slicks, so I was convinced that I would be able to pass him if I could follow him with patience in the beginning.

"Then Dominick did a good job after a year of absence. It's just fantastic. The finish of the race was the best moment of this season for us.

"Before the race, I was told by Mr.Chiba, our team principal, that this would be the final race for the Taisan team and he wanted a win to commemorate it. So I am really happy that we were able to dedicate this win to him."

"For this race, we brought tires that were tuned up using data from the group test at Fuji. The basic idea of the tuning was to gain more grip at a lower range of load.

"Both (ADVAN shoed GT500) cars went into the Super Lap session and Oliveira placed his car on the front row, although he pushed a little too hard and missed out the pole position. Ishiura settled for fourth but he registered the fastest sector time in sector 3 of the warm-up lap. If you combine that with the first two sector times from his qualifying lap, you would see the true potential he had in that session.

"The results were not as good as we had hoped, partly because of a mechanical problem on KONDO Racing's car, but I think the performance of the tires was excellent.

"Yunker Power Taisan Porsche scored its first win of the season in the GT300 class. Even though we were not contending for the title in this race, we are glad to conclude the season with a class win."