Jenson and the Suzuka 1000km

Next weekend Jenson will take part in his second big race of the year this time in Japan. The 46th Suzuka 1000km will be the last ones. This will be the last year because since 2018 the race will be called Suzuka 10h trying to host races of GT3s championships like the Blancpain Series. Since years ago Jenson is interested in that race and now he is free from F1 he finally can take part there. It was official June the 2nd and the first tests were days later the 6th and 7th as a part of the tyre manufacturer test in Suzuka. He did more tan 30 laps but wanted to do more laps so he did 36 laps in the official Super GT test sessions held from 30th June to 1st July. After this 30th June, as Suzuka's webpage says, he said "We are surely competitve and improved in some parts compared to the tests we did last time. These increased my own confidence. Many things need to be done by the race, but without a doubt it's going in the right direction."

Jenson and Kobayashi will be the main starts of the race

"I think the race should be really exciting. In the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the difference in performance between the GT cars and the Prototype cars is so big so is easy to overtake and not so fun."

"However, It's more difficult to overtake here in Super GT and you definitely need need to take more risk to overtake, But it's good, it definitely adds to the Racing."

The NSX GT500 Jenson will drive in the race alongside Hideki Muto and Daisuke Nakajima

 The Super GT championship is made of two different categories, one called Super GT (nowadays probably fastest GTs of the world with similar rules of the German DTM) and the GT300 which is basically GT3 cars. As in all multiclass races the attention will be in the top category : Honda, Nissan and Lexus are the manufacturers with drivers like Heikki Kovalainen, Kazuki Nakajima, Nick Cassidy, James Rossiter or the 2011 GT Academy winner Jann Mardenborough. Jenson's lap times will be around 20 seconds slower than his time at Suzuka in the Japanese GP from 2016 where he was 17th in the qualy with a 1:32:851.

Nissan's machine the GT-R GT500

 The race started at 1966 but until 1983 wasn't part of any championship when it started to be part of the All Japan Sports Prototype Championship. Then after some years of changes and be part of other championship since 2006 it's part of the Super GT championship. Famous drivers like André Lotterer, Mark Webber, Bernd Schneider, Henri Pescarolo or Roland Ratzenberger won the race and we hope Jenson can be one of them since the next weekend.

Jenson's helmet for the race

The YouTube channel called Nismo TV will stream the race and the Live is ready yet so you can go there and turn on the notification so you won't miss the race ! The championship explained : https://youtu.be/DRrH4CadrKc

Lexus' car for the Super GT