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Autopolis is kind of a strange place, a massive circuit built at the top of a mountain in the southern part of Japan on the island of Kyushu. You can read about it here - it’s worth it, the track has an interesting history. I first drove there in 2006 shortly after it had just opened again following Kawasakis takeover but at that point it must have been closed for something like ten years already. It’s kind of like a ghost track – nothing has been done to keep it maintained and the hotels were demolished a long time ago. Still, it’s a spectacular venue – even by todays much higher standards.

For us it was near miss again. We were comfortably quickest in the free practice and therefore opted for a harder tyre compound as the tarmac is known here to be very abrasive. We qualified in 5th place which was still ok as we knew most of the other cars in front were on softer tyres that weren’t likely to last.

After loosing out in the start I got back into 5th pretty quickly but then got stuck behind the #1 Nismo. We were still fairly close to the leaders and my tyres were still alright so I wasn’t too concerned, but on the lap after the Nismo pitted and I was able to start pushing before my own pitstop, I got a small touch by the Raybrig #100 car which sent me crashing into a GT300. Unfortunately that meant our race was over even though I managed to get back to the pits and swap with Daisuke.

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