The fifth round of 2009 Super GT series was held at Sports Land Sugo. The forecast had said it would be cloudy, some rain later, and quite variable weather for both Saturday and Sunday. Contrary to the forecast, however, the sessions on Saturday were run on the dry track under a blue sky, occasionally cloudy. The temperatures of the air and the track surface also rose much more than expected, which led to a very hot and tough start of the race weekend.

One of the regular competitors in the GT500 class, HIS ADVAN KONDO GT-R, scored its first win on the home soil at the season opener this year and had been the championship leader since then with very consistent point finishes in every race in which it competed. But, after some modifications on the rules this year, now the leading competitors must carry the weight handicaps that are directly proportional to the points they have accumulated. As a result, HIS ADVAN KONDO GT-R was encumbered with a 74kg weight handicap for the race, which was the heaviest of the class, and most people anticipated the Kondo's car would struggle in the race.

Nonetheless, HIS ADVAN KONDO GT-R still managed to put the fourth fastest time in the first qualifying session in Saturday afternoon, before gaining one more position with the J.P. de Oliveira's superb time attack lap in the Super Lap session. Thus the car got the third grid for the Sunday's race.

In the GT300 class, Daishin ADVAN Ferrari (Takayuki Aoki/Tomonobu Fujii) took the pole position and other ADVAN shoed cars including Apple K-one Shiden and S Road MOLA Z also sat on the upper grids.

Although the sky was clear in the morning hours of Sunday, the dark clouds were looming as the start time, two p.m., had approached. So now the biggest concern for the teams was when the rain would begin to fall.

After the race got underway on time, de Oliveira drove his HIS ADVAN KONDO GT-R consistently and duly kept the third position in the early stage of the race. Given the 74kg extra weight the car had, his pace looked really good and he performed well enough to take the second position on Lap 20, beating the pole sitting Nissan GT-R after some exciting battles.

However, then came the first spots of rain, which led to unexpected developments. ADVAN introduced a brand-new rain tire this year and it certainly helped the Kondo's eponymous team win the wet race at Okayama International Circuit when the tires were used in race conditions for the first time. Since the team knew how good they were, HIS ADVAN KONDO GT-R came into the pit at the end of Lap 27 to change to the wet tires, as the first one to do so among the leading competitors. After refueling and driver change in addition to the tire change, Seiji Ara brought the car back on the track to come up to the team's expectations for another good run.

But, contrary to their anticipation, the rain wasn't really coming down yet and his tires were already damaged to a certain extent because the track wasn't wet enough for the rain tires. A few laps later, the surface finally became wet throughout but, with another unexpected trouble hitting him, Ara was forced to make two unscheduled pit stops in total and had to settle for finishing lowly 13th.

His pace with dry tires, however, was just amazing and, as his best lap time (1'24"267) showed, he was the fastest driver on the track in the second half of the race. So the true performance was much better than the result and the team was able to hold high hopes for the next round.

The GT300 class competition saw a somewhat similar development. Starting from the pole position, Tomonobu Fujii driving Daishin ADVAN Ferrari gradually pulled away from his followers and built a significant gap with them.

When he completed his 31st lap, he came in to the pit to change the tires and driver, as it rained quite steadily at that time. Using the ADVAN's heavy rain tires, Takayuki Aoki's performance in the rain was good enough to regain the lead position when all opponents complete their mandatory pit stops, before pulling away from the main rivals again.

But a decisive turning point in the closing phase of the race came when the rain eased off a little bit. With less water on the track, if you were pursuing the leader, it might be better to take a risk and change back to dry tires in that particular situation. But Daishin ADVAN Ferrari was leading the race with a considerable margin and the team knew that the ADVAN rain tires could keep a certain level of pace even on the drying track. Perhaps because of this knowledge, the team hesitated to make a decision to change the tires, which eventually allowed its opponents to outpace and catch the Ferrari in the closing stage. As a result, Daishin ADVAN Ferrari finished the race in fourth.

Although the actual winner was shoed with other manufacturer's tires, remaining two slots on the podium were filled with two ADVAN shoed cars, Apple K-one Shiden (Hiroki Katoh/Hiroki Yoshimoto) and Jimgainer ADVAN F430 (Tetsuya Tanaka/Katsuyuki Hiranaka). With this second place finish, the winner of the previous round, Apple K-one Shiden, now moved up to third in the championship.

　[Result : 4th in the GT300 class]
"The car was fast enough to pull away from the opponents even if the track was wet. In terms of pure performance, we were able to win the race. When the rain eased off, we had to make decision whether we should switch to slicks or not but we couldn't decide it swiftly enough and missed the opportunity to change the tires.
"In hindsight, I think we should have won the race if we had switched to slicks, so it's very regrettable.
"The heavy rain tires with harder compound we used were really good. We could maintain a decent pace with less water on the surface and would still be able to continue with the same tires even if the track was drenched again.
"As the race winning Porsche was so fast even on the wet track, I had thought they would catch us if the rain had come. But, against my anticipation, they didn't. Because we had a 30 second gap with them, I hoped to hold on to our lead position until the finish but then the rain stopped... It's a shame."