Super Taikyu – The field doubles in the second year

When Super Taikyu – Japan’s popular endurance championship – starts this weekend at Suzuka, eight cars will race in the TCR class. This means a 100% increase of the field compared to 2017, the debut season for the category in Japan.
The DOME team that placed its Honda Civic cars first and second in the final classification has entered three Civics, two new FK7 models and one FK2 from last year.

Team principal, Yoshinori Arimatsu said: “It is always a challenge to start the season with new cars, because we have to deal with two races at the same time: one for preparing the cars and then the actual race on the track. We’ve got the cars just ten days before the race weekend and immediately went to the shakedown. We could not judge the car since it was in the wet condition, but the general feeling was good and the new driver line up makes us confident. It will be tough, because the number of competitors has doubled compared to last year and they are all strong teams. I am sure that with the new cars we have the potential to defend the title, and we are ready for it!”

The DOME crews that are led by former F1 driver Shinji Nakano, will face four Audi RS3 LMS cars entered by BRP, Audi Team Mars and Audi Team DreamDrive, plus the Adenau-Racingline Volkswagen Golf GTI that showed its speed on its occasional appearances last year.