The championship showdown, the eighth and final round of Super GT series, was held at Twin Ring Motegi which is a typical “stop & go” circuit. Yokohama Tire headed to this race to defend the status of the GT300 champion's tire supplier, with GSR Hatsune Miku BMW in second in the point standings, eight points behind the leader, and Okinawa-Imp SLS in fourth, 14 points behind.

The sky was cloudy on Sunday, as it had been on the qualifying day. But there was no concern about rain and the temperatures were a little higher than the day before, with the air/surface temperatures at 20/26 degrees Celsius at the time of the start, a half past 1 p.m. After completing the formation lap, the 53 lap race got underway at 1:34 p.m. While Hironobu Yasuda at the wheel of D'station ADVAN GT-R kept the position where he started, 11th, at the end of Lap 1, Seiji Ara in WedsSport ADVAN SC430 spun between Turn 3 and 4 on the same lap and dropped down to the bottom of the field.

On Lap 5, Yasuda gave way to Weider Modulo HSV-010 and this put him down to 12th. But he regained 11th on Lap 14 by overtaking Reito Mola GT-R. Meanwhile, Ara's clever pace control after the spin started to pay off and he was reducing the gap with the cars in front of him from around Lap 10.

At the end of Lap 19, when the race had just past a third of its distance, five competitors came in to the pits as the first to do so. WedsSport ADVAN SC430 with Ara at the wheel was going faster than its direct opponents at the time but the team decided to make an early pit stop to avoid the foreseen jam-up in the pit lane. Ara changed to Andre Couto during the stop. On the other hand, D'station ADVAN GT-R, which was running in seventh for the opponents' pit stop, visited the pit on Lap 20 to change from Yasuda to Michael Krumm.

Both teams chose the harder tires than those they had started the race with because the second stints were longer than the first. When all cars had done the mandatory pit stops by Lap 25, D'station ADVAN GT-R was in tenth and WedsSport SC430 was in 13th but their pace was really good. On Lap 37, Couto managed to pass Reito Mola GT-R and gained a position.

Then he made a move on ARTA HSV-010 two laps later and became almost abreast on the pit straight. However, Couto hit the right rear corner of the ARTA backed Honda with his car's left front corner and the impact caused the ARTA car to crash after a spin. WedsSport SC430 was running in 11th now but the Macanese was given a drive through penalty for the avoidable collision. He served the penalty on Lap 44 and was in 14th when the SC430 rejoined the race.

But Couto didn't give up and continued to race in a good pace. As a result of his effort, WedsSport ADVAN SC430 finally came up to tenth on Lap 49. At the end of the day, D'station ADVAN GT-R finished the race in ninth, thanks to Krumm's drive in a similarly good pace, and the WedsSport car followed in tenth, which meant both of the two Yokohama shoed cars ended the season finale with point finishes.

In the beginning of the GT300 class race, Kazuki Hoshino in S Road NDDP GT-R was running in fourth and was followed by Haruki Kurosawa in Leon SLS, Takayuki Aoki in MonePa Lamborghini GT3, Tatsuya Kataoka in GSR Hatsune Miku BMW and Hideki Yamauchi in La Seine Lamborghini GT3. The first position change among this group occurred between Aoki and Kurosawa on Lap 7. Then the two drivers passed Hoshino in succession on Lap 13 and started to pull away from the rest of the group gradually.

GSR Hatsune Miku BMW with Kataoka at the wheel made an early pit stop on Lap 18, when it was running in sixth, and changed to Nobuteru Taniguchi. The team didn't replace the tires and sent the car back to the track, spending only minimum pit stop time. As the other leading cars made their stops around Lap 25, MonePa Lamborghini GT3 became the race leader on Lap 26 and the La Seine backed sister car followed in second, until they finally came in the pits on Lap 29 and 30 respectively. This was proof of the good durability of Yokohama supplied tires.

When the driver change pit stops were completed for all cars, Taniguchi found himself running in fourth and Manabu Orido, having been handed the MonePa car from Aoki, followed him in fifth. It was surprising that Takeshi Tsuchiya in Okinawa-Imp SLS was now in seventh because the car had been qualified lowly in 20th. But, after having gained quite a few positions in his stint steadily, Hironori Takeuchi, the starting driver of the SLS, had changed to Tsuchiya very early, on Lap 17, and this strategy worked very well. Then Tsuchiya was getting close to Tsubasa Kurosawa in Leon SLS but it wasn't close enough to put pressure on Kurosawa. Nevertheless, Takeuchi and Tsuchiya made a great recovery, after settling for the disappointing qualifying result, by overtaking as many as 13 cars.

Taniguchi in GSR Hatsune Miku BMW then started to build a gap with Orido and others and even got close to the cars in front of him in the final few laps. But he was running out of time and eventually ended the race in fourth. This meant GSR Hatsune Miku BMW lost the fight for the championship title and finished the season in third.

　[Result : 10th in the GT500 class]
“I struggled a little for the early stage of the race because my pace wasn't good enough. But I thought I shouldn't push so much to keep up with the others and I dared ease off the pace slightly. Then, predictably, other cars' pace started to drop suddenly and I was able to catch them in the second half of my stint. But, to avoid the risk of any accident or mishap, we decided to make the pit stop early.

“Considering the remaining laps and our pace, I told the team that my recommendation for Andre's stint was the harder tires. This was the right call, so his pace in the closing stage was very good. It was unfortunate that we had that penalty but, strategy-wise, I feel we did the best things we could have done today.”

　[Result : 9th in the GT300 class]
“In terms of the way our race went, it was a bit difficult for me because we used the softer tires for my stint in the first half of the race. But we chose the harder ones for Michael's stint and his pace looked very good. As a result, we managed to finish the race just behind Motul Autech GT-R.

“From our point of view, we were able to fight with the leading cars under the conditions that no one carries any handicap weight and I think we really had a good race in this season finale. But, looking back on the whole season, our results didn't meet our expectations and it is a shame we didn't score any podium finish at all. For the special final event of the season, JAF Grand Prix, we will use the tires that we are confident with from the qualifying session, so I am looking forward to doing a good race.”

“For this final round, we provided the tires that are based on the findings from the group testing at Motegi. At the time of testing, the temperatures were higher than those we anticipated for the race weekend, so we made some adjustments in the area of compounds. As Motegi is a typical stop and go circuit, our focus was on the traction performance from the bottom speed of the corners. In addition, we gave consideration to the warm up characteristics in lower temperature range because we had struggled with that issue last year ? we suffered from the bad weather in the testing that year.

“The weight handicap rules weren't applied to this final round. Therefore, we expected that the issues that our tires had, both in the qualifying and the race, and our relative position to the other manufacturers should become clearer in this weekend. So it was disappointing to see that our GT500 cars didn't make their ways into Q2 and our GT300 cars lost in the fight for the pole position. It was true the qualifying results were so close in both classes but we must admit that was the position where we were this weekend.

“On the race day, the air and surface temperatures were a little higher than those on the qualifying day. In the second half of the race, both of our GT500 cars used the different tires from the ones they started the race with and their paces especially in the closing stage were very good in comparison with the users of the other manufacturers' tires. And, despite receiving a penalty, both of them managed to finish the race in points. I feel this was the confirmation that our direction for the tire development, specifically in the consistency of lap times and the improvement on durability, was right.

“As for the GT300, it was so frustrating to lose the championship title to the car which use the other manufacturer's tires. The Balance of Performance rules might affect the result but that was a part of the race and we must review it for the future.

“The regular season has ended with this race. But we will still have the JAF Grand Prix races, so we will make every effort for the next race meeting.”