1996 All Japan Grand Touring Car Championship

The 1996 All Japan Grand Touring Car Championship was the fourth season of Japan Automobile Federation GT premiere racing. It was marked as well as the fourteenth season of a JAF-sanctioned sports car racing championship dating back to the All Japan Sports Prototype Championship. The GT500 class champion was the #61 Team Lark McLaren F1 GTR driven by David Brabham and John Nielsen, and the GT300 class champion was the #26 Team Taisan Jr Porsche 964 driven by Keiichi Suzuki and Morio Nitta.

1996 All Japan Grand Touring Car Championship
Previous: 1995 Next: 1997

For the 1996 season, the names of the two classes of the JGTC were changed to GT500 and GT300, replacing the previous GT1 and GT2 names from the 1994 and 1995 season. This season also mandated two-driver teams for all races. On November 17, the series held its first non-championship "All-Star Race" at Central Circuit.

The arrival of the McLaren F1 GTRs, prepared by Team Goh, was the biggest story of the 1996 season. The number 60 McLaren of Naoki Hattori and Ralf Schumacher led a 1-2 finish at the season opening round at Suzuka. However, despite winning three races, Hattori and Schumacher also suffered three retirements, and were beaten to the title by their senior teammates, Brabham and Nielsen. Despite massive performance handicaps instituted by the GTA, the two McLaren F1 GTRs combined to win four of the six championship races, and won pole position and set fastest lap in all six. At odds with the GTA over further performance handicaps that were to be proposed, Team Goh withdrew from the series after the championship finale at Miné Circuit, and after an aborted attempt to return in 2006, they would not return to the series until 2019.

The season also featured the debut of the Honda NSX in the series, although direct factory support would not appear until the following season; as such, the car entered by Team Kunimitsu was mostly mechanically identical to the 1995 24 Hours of Le Mans GT2 class winner.

Schedule
Round Race Circuit Date
1 Suzuka GT 300 Suzuka Circuit March 31
2 All Japan Fuji GT Race Fuji Speedway May 4
3 HiLand GT Championship Sendai Hi-Land Raceway June 30
4 Japan Special GT-Cup Fuji Speedway August 11
5 SUGO GT Championship Sportsland SUGO October 6
6 CP Mine GT Race Mine Circuit October 27
NC Nicos Cup GT Allstar Race Central Circuit November 17

Season results
Round Circuit GT500 Winning Team GT300 Winning Team
GT500 Winning Drivers GT300 Winning Drivers
1 Suzuka Circuit #60 Team Lark McLaren F1 GTR #26 Team Taisan Jr Porsche 964
Naoki Hattori
Ralf Schumacher		 Keiichi Suzuki
Morio Nitta
2 Mt. Fuji #61 Team Lark McLaren F1 GTR #910 910 Racing Porsche 993
David Brabham
John Nielsen		 Seiichi Sodeyama
Naoki Nagasaka
3 Sendai #37 Castrol Cerumo Toyota Supra #72 Makiguchi Engineering BMW M3
Hironori Takeuchi
Érik Comas		 Morio Makiguchi
Takayuki Kinoshita
4 Mt. Fuji #1 Calsonic Hoshino Racing GT-R #910 910 Racing Porsche 993
Masahiko Kageyama
Kazuyoshi Hoshino		 Seiichi Sodeyama
Naoki Nagasaka
5 Sportsland SUGO #60 Team Lark McLaren F1 GTR #26 Team Taisan Jr Porsche 964
Naoki Hattori
Ralf Schumacher		 Keiichi Suzuki
Morio Nitta
6 Mine Circuit #60 Team Lark McLaren F1 GTR #26 Team Taisan Jr Porsche 964
Naoki Hattori
Ralf Schumacher		 Keiichi Suzuki
Morio Nitta
NC Central Circuit #3 Hasemi Motorsports GT-R #7 RE Amemiya Mazda RX-7
Masahiro Hasemi
Tetsuya Tanaka		 Shinichi Yamaji
Haruhiko Matsumoto

Point Ranking

Drivers
Rank No. Driver SUZ FUJ SEN FUJ SUG MIN CEN Points
1 61 John Nielsen
David Brabham		 2 1 8 2 20Ret 4 63
2 60 Naoki Hattori

Ralf Schumacher

 1 22Ret 15 19Ret 1 1 60
3 37 Érik Comas 16 4 1 16Ret 4 2 2 55
4 1 Masahiko Kageyama

Kazuyoshi Hoshino

 8 5 5 1 2 16Ret 5 54
5 3 Masahiro Hasemi

Tetsuya Tanaka

 3 6 2 14 6 5 1 47
6 2 Aguri Suzuki

Hideo Fukuyama

 4 19Ret 7 3 5 3 3 46
7 37 Hironori Takeuchi 1 16Ret 4 2 2 45
8 36 Masanori Sekiya 5 2 3 20Ret 8 17Ret 4 38
8 36 Pedro de la Rosa 5 2 3 20Ret 8 17Ret 38
9 39 Alain Ferté 17 3 4 9 7 28
10 39 Wayne Gardner 17 3 4 9 8 27
11 556 Toshio Suzuki

Masahiko Kondo

 6 18Ret 17 5 3 10 10 27
12 8 Tom Kristensen 10 13 6 4 14 7 21
13 8 Bertrand Gachot 4 14 7 14
14 37 Hidetoshi Mitsusada 16 4 10
15 34 Hideshi Matsuda

Osamu Nakako

 9 9 18Ret 12 12 6 8 10
16 55 Kenji Miyakotai

Hiroyuki Kawai

 11 10 11 6 9 9
17 100 Kunimitsu Takahashi

Keiichi Tsuchiya

 18Ret 8 12 7 10 11 6 8
18 8 Tatsuya Tanikawa 10 13 6 7
19 30 Yoji Yamada 7 11 9 18Ret 21Ret 20Ret 9 6
19 30 Eiichi Tajima 7 11 9 18Ret 21Ret 20Ret 6
20 35 Oscar Larrauri 7 20Ret 15 15Ret 4
20 35 Takeshi Tsuchiya 12 7 20Ret 4
20 39 Naoki Nagasaka 7 4
23 43 Yasutaka Hinoi

Yukio Yamamoto

 20Ret 12 13 8 13 18Ret 3
23 39 Giampiero Simoni 8 3
25 17 Masami Kageyama

Yuji Tachikawa

 20Ret 19Ret 22Ret 9 2
26 5 Satoshi Iida 13 14 10 17Ret 19Ret 12 1
26 5 Tetsuya Ota 13 14 10 19Ret 12 1
26 16 Tetsushi Toda 10 11 1
26 15 Mitsuno Taro 16 0
16 10 1
27 88 Takao Wada 19Ret 21Ret 11 17Ret 13 0
28 88 Satoshi Ikezawa 21Ret 11 17Ret 13 0
29 16 Tarzan Yamada 11 0
30 35 Anthony Reid 12 15 0
31 19 Kobayashi Takeo 21Ret 17 16 13 18Ret 14 0
32 19 Manabu Orido 13 0
33 69 Kenji Kawagoe

Shunji Kasuya

 14 15 14 0
34 19 Takeru Koma 18Ret 14 0
35 15 Sekine Motoshi 15 16 19Ret 15 16Ret 0
36 15 Takahiro Ito 19Ret 15 16Ret 0
37 15 Scott Maxwell 15 0
38 19 Naohiro Furuya 21Ret 17 16 0
39 35 Mitsuhiro Kinoshita 15Ret 0
40 5 Michael Krumm 17Ret 0
41 16 Osamu Nakajima

Ijima Ichiro

 19Ret 0
42 88 Kanaumi Tatsuhiko 19Ret 0
43 36 Ukyo Katayama 4 0
44 39 Olivier Grouillard
David Dussoo		 7 0
45 30 Kazuo Mogi 9 0

Drivers
Rank Drivers Number/Team Points Wins
1 Keiichi Suzuki
Morio Nitta		 #26 Team Taisan Jr Porsche 964 90 3
2 Seiichi Sodeyama #910 910 Racing Porsche 993 65 2
3 Morio Makiguchi
Takayuki Kinoshita		 #72 Makiguchi Engineering BMW M3 53 1
4 Naoki Nagasaka #910 910 Racing Porsche 993 50 2
5 Katsunori Iketani
Kazuo Mogi		 #31 Cobra Racing Team Porsche 993 46 0
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