With thanks to our friend and colleague Geinou of RacingBlog.de, who covered this weekend’s Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters (DTM) final round and Autobacs Super GT Series Show Run at the Hockenheimring in Badem-Württemberg, Germany, here is the transscript of Sunday morning’s joint press conference by ITR president Gerhard Berger, and GTA chairman Masaaki Bandoh.

We are very honoured and pleased to have Mr. Masaaki Bandoh, the chairman of GTA, the organizing body of Super GT in Japan, here today. We also want to welcome Mr. Gerhard Berger, the chairman of ITR. Mr. Bandoh, I would like to give you the first word.

MB: My name is Masaaki Bandoh, and I am the chairman of the GT Association (GTA). First I’d like to express my gratitude for joining in front of all of you for this press conference. Today we will see another race here at Hockenheim. But already, at this point I would like to congratulate the DTM on a very successful 2017 season in which the ITR could excite and fascinate a lot of fans up to this final race with great drivers, great teams, and great race management.

The collaboration of Super GT and DTM started with a meeting when we met with the management of ITR at the final race of the Super GT season in 2009. Today, this collaboration reached a historic milestone. Our best Super GT cars were running here on the Hockenheimring at an official DTM race. October 14, 2017 markes the start of a new era of German and Japanese motorsports, and will go down in the history of both countries. The demonstration run was made possible because of the strong support of all of you, because of the support of the DTM racing teams, and also because of the ITR. I would like to express my gratitude to everybody who was involved, starting from the transport of the cars here to Hockenheim, and also supporting us through the run.

As the Class One regulation is about to be completed, our collaboration will also go further into even more solid structures. With this weekend’s demonstration runs, I think our collaboration will further intensify, and I’m very convinced of the success of this work and I am also looking forward to the outcomes. In November, we will have our final race at Twin Ring Motegi, and I’m very much looking forward and can’t wait to welcome the DTM cars there to our race. Thank you.

Gerhard Berger, what were you thinking when you saw the Japanese cars on the track for the first time? What were your emotions at the time?

GB: First of all, I want to once again welcome Mr. Bandoh. I am very, very happy of what we achieved this weekend – by working together to bring this collaborative effort for our fans. Bandoh-san has already explained about the history of our efforts, and he knows much more about it because I have only been in this position for less than a year.

We met for the first time during the first race of the season at Hockenheim. Unfortunately, at that time I couldn’t answer a lot of his questions, and I didn’t have many strong feelings at the time, because I was still new to the job and did not know how important this collaboration would be for the future. Some of you already know me from my time working for the manufacturers, that I was always explaining how important it is for us, and for the FIA, and for motorsport as a whole, to have unity in regulations worldwide, otherwise the costs for us to participate would increase due to the costs of development.

Over the last few months, I took a closer look into this, and I understood that there is already a fantastic collaboration going on with Japan, with their manufacturers and with Bandoh-san. For me, it became clear that this is something that the ITR must support, that we must push further to achieve a unified set of regulations in Japan and Europe, in order to produce a motor racing together without increasing the costs for the manufacturers by two or three times. And it gives us the chance to have many more manufacturers joining us in the future. I’m sure if we keep going this way, that other manufacturers from all around the world, including America, will join in and become a part of this programme.

There is still quite a long way to go. This weekend we had Super GT cars at a DTM race meeting for the first time. It will also go both ways: We are very happy to be invited to come to Motegi, Japan, in three weeks. Our manufacturers will go there to demonstrate our cars. I think it is going to be a positive step not only in Europe, but also in Japan and the rest of Asia.

As you know, we will modify our regulations for 2019 to conform with the Class One regulations. We will implement the two litre, four-cylinder, roughly 600 horsepower strong turbocharged engines, just like our friends in Japan are already running. Their cars were really quick down the straightaway. It shows us that we can improve our own lap times – these engines will have 100 more horsepower than our current engines. We are going to make our spectacular series even better.

On the other side, we have a fantastic balance system where we are going to work with our manufacturers to decrease the costs of the series and bring the manufacturers closer together. As we discussed yesterday, Super GT may also follow us in this direction. We are going to work on developing our engines, while they are going to work on developing their aero and chassis. I think that by either 2019 or 2020 at the latest that we will finally have cars from both series on the same track, with the goal of racing together on different circuits around the world, both in Europe and Japan.

Taking a look at the cars from Japan, what is your opinion on them?

GB: Well, as a racing driver, I never like it when our rivals are faster than we are (laughs). So I think we have some work to do.

What do you think about the sound of the GT500 cars?

GB: I actually like the turbo sound a lot. It was something we all looked forward to, hearing the difference in sound compared to our current V8 engines. For me, it was just like it was in the old days. Turbocharged cars have a very special sound.

Mr. Bandoh, what were your thoughts when you saw the three DTM cars together with the Super GT cars for the first time?

MB: First of all, I have to tell yo that we are very happy that we finally managed to make this possible. I was also happy, and lost my breath when I saw the five cars running together. We brought over two very strong cars from GT500 and it was a great experience for me.

What is the reason for this guest appearance?

MB: Since 2014, we have been working on this collaboration for a long time, deep down towards the details of the regulations that we are about to finalize. As Mr. Berger said, we have to show that we are in an intense collaboration. We thought that, even if we have to take a lot of small steps and have many discussions and talks, that we must show some real and hands-on results. I think that this was a very meaningful step to bring over our cars and present them here this weekend.

Regarding the regulations, who is the driving force of these so called “Class One” regulations?

GB: I do not believe that there is one person that is behind these regulations. I just know that for many, many yeaers, that the ITR did a great job together with the manufacturers in Germany to develop our regulations and a unified parts system. It’s something that could not be possible in other forms of motorsport like Formula One, because you would run out of budget due to high development costs, and you would not get the right return on investment. It’s always a difficult exercise to find the right balance. For this reason, many years ago, the German manufacturers and the ITR determined that standard regulations and certain common parts of the car would help bring the costs down and make the racing better – that it would be the right thing to do on our end.

I think that they did a great job. I think they put a lot of money and effort into it. And I think that Super GT also understood that this was the right direction. For this reason we did come to an agreement, moving towards the same direction and developing our regulations step-by-step. So I would say that this Class One system, these regulations, were born in Germany, and in collaboration with our partners in Japan, we will try and convince those around the world to follow our lead.

Final question regarding the future: Can you say or predict when the first Japanese car will be racing in DTM, or when the first German car will be running in Super GT (in GT500)?

GB: No, I cannot tell you. But I can tell you one thing: I know how competitive the world of motorsport is, and I know how competitive the manufacturers are. These have been two very friendly days on the race track. But everybody on each side is already thinking about how they can defeat the others (laughs). So I believe that the process has already started.