1997 All Japan Grand Touring Car Championship

1997 All Japan Grand Touring Car Championship

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The 1997 All Japan Grand Touring Car Championship was the fifth season of Japan Automobile Federation GT premiere racing. It was marked as well as the fifteenth season of a JAF-sanctioned sports car racing championship dating back to the All Japan Sports Prototype Championship. The GT500 class champion was the #36 Castrol TOM'S Toyota Supra driven by Michael Krumm and Pedro de la Rosa and the GT300 class champion was the #19 Bandoh Racing Nissan Silvia driven by Hideo Fukuyama and Manabu Orido.

The GT500 Drivers' Championship was decided on a tiebreaker for the first and, as of the conclusion of the 2019 season, the only time in JGTC/Super GT history. The duo of De la Rosa and Krumm, and Toyota Team SARD driver Masami Kageyama each scored 67 points, with two victories, and one second place finish. But a third-place finish for De la Rosa and Krumm broke the tie, giving them the championship for the Toyota Castrol Team. With this, De la Rosa became the first driver to win both the GT500 Drivers' Championship, and the Japanese Top Formula Championship in Formula Nippon (now Super Formula), in the same calendar year.

Schedule

Round	Race	Circuit	Date
1	Suzuka GT 300	Suzuka Circuit	March 30
2	All Japan Fuji GT Race	Fuji Speedway	May 4
3	HiLand GT Championship	Sendai Hi-Land Raceway	June 29
4	Japan Special GT-Cup	Fuji Speedway	August 10
5	CP Mine GT Race	Mine Circuit	October 5
6	SUGO GT Championship	Sportsland SUGO	October 26
NC	Nicos Cup GT Allstar Race	Twin Ring Motegi	November 16

Season results

Round	Circuit	GT500 Winning Team	GT300 Winning Team
		GT500 Winning Drivers	GT300 Winning Drivers
1	Suzuka Circuit	#2 Zexel NISMO GT-R	#19 Racing Project Bandoh Nissan Silvia
		Aguri Suzuki Érik Comas	Hideo Fukuyama Manabu Orido
2	Mt. Fuji	#39 Denso Team SARD Toyota Supra	#26 Team Taisan Jr Porsche 964
		Masami Kageyama Tatsuya Tanigawa	Keiichi Suzuki Morio Nitta
3	Sendai	#36 Castrol TOM'S Toyota Supra	#25 Tsuchiya Engineering Toyota MR2
		Michael Krumm Pedro de la Rosa	Takeshi Tsuchiya Masaoki Nagashima
4	Mt. Fuji	#39 Denso Team SARD Toyota Supra	#26 Team Taisan Jr Porsche 964
		Masami Kageyama Tatsuya Tanigawa	Keiichi Suzuki Morio Nitta
5	Mine Circuit	#36 Castrol TOM'S Toyota Supra	#19 Racing Project Bandoh Nissan Silvia
		Michael Krumm Pedro de la Rosa	Hideo Fukuyama Manabu Orido
6	Sportsland SUGO	#5 Team 5Zigen Toyota Supra	#71 Team Sigmatech Porsche 993
		Eiichi Tajima Marc Goossens	Kaoru Hoshino Masaki Jyonai
NC	Twin Ring Motegi	#2 Zexel NISMO GT-R	#27 Ferrari Club Japan Ferrari F355
		Aguri Suzuki Érik Comas	Tetsuya Ota Anders Olofsson
		#2 Zexel NISMO GT-R	#27 Ferrari Club Japan Ferrari F355
		Aguri Suzuki Érik Comas	Tetsuya Ota Anders Olofsson

Point ranking

GT500 class

Drivers

Rank	No.	Driver	SUZ	FUJ	SEN	FUJ	MIN	SUG	MOT	MOT	Points
1	36	Pedro de la Rosa Michael Krumm	13	3	1	2	1	15			67
2	39	Masami Kageyama	2	1	5	1	13	7	Ret	12Ret	67
3	37	Toshio Suzuki	3	6	3	3	3	4	3	2	64
3	37	Masanori Sekiya	3	6	3	3	3	4			64
	36								Ret	5
4	2	Aguri Suzuki	1	4	2	10	9	3	1	1	60
5	39	Tatsuya Tanigawa		1	5	1	13	7	Ret	12Ret	52
6	2	Érik Comas	1		2	10	9	3	1	1	50
7	3	Masahiro Hasemi Tetsuya Tanaka	4	2	9	6	7	17Ret	4	3	37
8	5	Eiichi Tajima	6	12Ret	6	19Ret	12	1	7	10	32
8	5	Marc Goossens	6	12Ret	6	19Ret	12	1			32
9	100	Kunimitsu Takahashi Akira Iida		16Ret	16	11	2	2	10	11	30
10	38	Hironori Takeuchi Katsutomo Kaneishi	7	9	4	8	5	10	2	4	28
11	12	Satoshi Motoyama	14Ret	5	15	4	6	14			24
12	8	Naoki Nagasaka			7		4	6			20
13	12	Kazuyoshi Hoshino	14Ret		15	4	6	14	Ret	6	16
14	39	Olivier Grouillard	2								15
15	8	Bertrand Gachot Paul Belmondo	10	14Ret							12
	510				8	5	11
16	18	Takuya Kurosawa Katsumi Yamamoto		17Ret	18Ret	17Ret	8	5	8	9	11
17	2	Marco Apicella		4							10
17	8	Tom Kristensen				15	4				10
19	556	Masahiko Kageyama Masahiko Kondo	5	11Ret	14	9	15Ret	16Ret	14Ret	7	10
20	8	Wayne Gardner			7	15		6			10
21	12	Mizuno Fuminori		5							8
22	13	Mitsuhiro Kinoshita	8	13Ret	11	7	10	12			8
23	13	Mitsuo Fujimura		13Ret	11	7	10	12			5
24	10	Satoshi Iida Ralph Firman	12	7	13	13		19DNQ			4
25	34	Keiichi Tsuchiya Hideshi Matsuda			10	20Ret	14	8	6	12Ret	4
26	30	Yoji Yamada Kazuo Mogi	9	10Ret	12	12	11	9	5	8	4
27	4	Kanaumi Tatsuhiko Takeru Koma	11	8	19DNQ	16		18DNQ			3
27	13	Satoshi Kikuchi	8								3
28	88	Takao Wada Hisashi Wada		15Ret	17Ret	14	17Ret	13	9	13Ret	0
29	47	Yamato Masato Katsuhiko Yamamoto				18Ret					0
30	37	Shingo Tachi							3	2	0
31	36	Ukyo Katayama							11Ret	5	0
32	12	Takeshi Tsuchiya							13Ret	6	0
33	5	Hiro Matsushita							7	10	0

GT300 Class (Top 5)

Drivers

Rank	Drivers	Number/Team	Points	Wins
1	Hideo Fukuyama Manabu Orido	#19 Racing Project Bandoh Nissan Silvia	90	2
2	Keiichi Suzuki Morio Nitta	#26 Team Taisan Jr Porsche 964	89	2
3	Masaoki Nagashima	#25 Tsuchiya Engineering Toyota MR-2	52	1
4	Takeshi Tsuchiya	#25 Tsuchiya Engineering Toyota MR-2	52	1
5	Kaoru Hoshino Masaki Jyonai	#71 Team Sigmatech Porsche 993	51	1

External links

• Super GT/JGTC official race archive (in Japanese)
• 1997 season results