As usual, my personal trainer Helmut comes over to Japan for some serious training, we always like to go the  lakes around Mt Fuji, we stay @ Sai-Ko lake, it’s a great playground for cycling, hicking, etc… A beautiful scenic spot just 1h drive from Tokyo, perfect for pure fresh air and reset your mind in this super quite area, lucky I have the luxury of using my friends chalet, it’s very helpful to plan this kind of training weeks.

Alex Imperatori joined us, he’s a friend and driver of Helmut to, they know each other from the A1 GP, where Alex is rookie driver for the Swiss team. He also race in the Japanese F3 championship. www.alexandreimperatori.com

Trying to get some fire going, was a bit cold but we managed it… after 1h…At the end of a hard day training I deserve a good massage… Nice view!Thats as good as it gets for my neck training in tokyo… We dont have any special machine here like at our training facility in Austria.

Motivation in our team was real high going into Round 1, we have a new car which turned out to be real quick after the first practice results! Everybody was exited to start racing again, maybe some were to much…

Our bad luck started when in left the pits for the super lap, I was pumped up to go and get pole position after our P2 in qualifying 1. A sudden puncture ruined our chances, we still don’t know how this happened, a complete mystery…

So we had to start 8th on Sunday for the race, it was raining a lot and I was confident of our great speed to recover and finish in top places. Unfortunately the race got ruined after 200m… I got hit from behind and got sent into the gravel trap, it was my friend Ben actually… He’s racing the N1 Nissan GT-R , I think he braked on a painted white line and his wheels locked up so he couldn’t brake in time. We lost 2 laps, kept racing just for the fun of it, we were real fast but no more chance… At least I got the fastest lap time which is a positive thing to carry into the future.

1	24	HIS ADVAN KONDO GT-R	J.P.L.de Oliveira Seiji Ara	2:20′54.071	82	YH
2	18	ROCKSTAR DOME NSX	Ryo Michigami Takashi Kogure	0′21.645	82	BS
3	8	ARTA NSX	Ralph Firman Takuya Izawa	1′06.979	82	BS
4	12	IMPUL CALSONIC GT-R	Tsugio Matsuda Sebastien Philippe	1′32.431	82	BS
5	17	KEIHIN NSX	Toshihiro Kaneishi Koudai Tsukakoshi	1Lap	81	BS
6	38	ZENT CERUMO SC430	Yuji Tachikawa Richard Lyons	1Lap	81	BS
7	32	EPSON NSX	Loic Duval Yuki Nakayama	1Lap	81	DL
8	100	RAYBRIG NSX	Yuji Ide Shinya Hosokawa	1Lap	81	BS
9	35	KRAFT SC430	Hiroaki Ishiura Kazuya Oshima	1Lap	81	BS
10	6	ENEOS SC430	Daisuke Ito Bjorn Wirdheim	2Laps	80	BS
11	36	PETRONAS TOM’S SC430	Jyuichi Wakisaka Andre Lotterer	2Laps	80	BS
12	3	HASEMI TOMICA EBBRO GT-R	Ronnie Quintarelli Hironobu Yasuda	3Laps	79	MI
13	1	MOTUL AUTECH GT-R	Satoshi Motoyama Benoit Treluyer	7Laps	75	BS
14	21	ASTON MARTIN AKASAKA DBR9	Akihiro Tsuzuki Takeshi Tsuchiya	8Laps	74	YH
15	39	DUNLOP SARD SC430	Andre Couto Kohei Hirate	12Laps	70	DL
Classified (GT500: 57 Laps) Best Lap GT500 – 1′37.940 : No.36 PETRONAS TOM’S SC430R (Andre Lotterer) Our big boss! Tachi, we all love him, he’s a legend, great personality! Pitwalk, fans love it! They are so into racing its great to see this and give something back to them with our show! Kids Walk, making the kids happy! Peace! Bitting the fish… Japanese people are always surprised with me, I have no problem with trying and enjoying almost any kind of japanese foods! Helmut to as you can see! We went jogging arround the track and it ended up in a one lap soccer game… we were playing with green tea can… Juichi won the penalty shot challenge… He’s great, you can have any kind of instant, spontaneous fun with him! Dinner with Juichi’s lovely family at our regular local restaurant when we go to Okayma, its like eating at home for juichi…

That was our yearly presentation @ Megaweb in Odaiba for Toyota’s general motorsports activities this year. Its great to be part of this and I want to personally thank Toyota for their strong commitment to our sport!

The second day of testing at Motegi was real wet, very damp conditions with aquaplaning all day long.

We could learn more about how the new car is working in the wet and play with the limits. A lot of guys went of the track trying to find their edge but mainly without damages. I had a short pass thru the gravel to… but I was pretty happy with our performance, always trying to beat each others time for p1, we look good in the wet as well so we should be ready to fight for podiums in any conditions for the season start!

I hope that’s the view that everybody will have, the back of my car…

A picture of him after last years international world rowing masters @ Vichy (France) which he brilliantly won!!

Check the medal!

Photos by T. Moriyama

This time we are all testing at Motegi, its the last test before the first race. Test went fine, we tried a lot of new setups and directions to collect important data and learned more about the 2009 spec tires. Unfortunately it rained again in the afternoon so we couldn’t push all day long.

We are looking good again, still early in the season and a lot of things can change because the cars are new and everybody is still learning how to improve them, so when the weather gets warmer some other teams might find some speed becausde the conditions would sudenly suit their cars better, we dont know now. 

At least we are doing well and its a nice boost of motivation for the team and a little extra confidence to start the season well!

Here the results and more testing tomorrow!

That’s the poster for the first race @ Fuji! Can’t realy see it because the car is not painted yet but it’s me on the cover! Cool

A quick snap of Juichi coming into the pits for some tire change. It’s the first time our new car is out on track with the final complete paint. I like!

Loic and me already planed to do a jogging at the end of the test day before arriving in Okayama, so we had our sport equipments ready. We asked Juichi to join us, he’s always up for any spontaneous action, that’s really cool with him. As you can see he didn’t bother about training wear…

GT500 Class
1	24	HIS ADVAN KONDO GT-R	Joao Paulo Lima de Oliveira Seiji Ara	1′25.620	1′26.735	*1′25.620	YH
2	1	MOTUL AUTECH GT-R	Satoshi Motoyama Benoit Treluyer	1′25.821	*1′25.821	1′26.207	BS
3	12	IMPUL CALSONIC GT-R	Matsuda Tsugio Sebastien Philippe	1′25.856	*1′25.856	1′26.274	BS
4	6	ENEOS SC430	Daisuke Ito Bjorn Wirdheim	1′25.900	*1′25.900	1′26.043	BS
5	36	PETRONAS TOM’S SC430	Jyuichi Wakisaka Andre Lotterer	1′25.910	1′26.184	*1′25.910	BS
6	38	ZENT CERUMO SC430	Yuji Tachikawa Richard Lyons	1′26.024	1′26.491	*1′26.024	BS
7	18	ROCKSTAR DOME NSX	Ryo Michigami Takashi Kogure	1′26.141	*1′26.141	1′26.288	BS
8	3	HASEMI TOMICA EBBRO GT-R	Ronnie Quintarelli Hironobu Yasuda	1′26.165	1′26.534	*1′26.165	MI
9	35	KRAFT SC430	Hiroaki Ishiura Kazuya Oshima	1′26.180	1′26.906	*1′26.180	BS
10	39	DUNLOP SARD SC430	Andre Couto Kohei Hirate	1′26.185	*1′26.185	1′27.153	DL