The fourth round of the Pirelli Super Taikyu Series, the “TKU Super Taikyu Race in Autopolis” 5 Hours, marks the start of the second half of the 2019 season.

54 cars are entered, representing 8 classes of cars, including six in the top class of ST-X. The headliner of the weekend was to be the series debut of Adrian Newey, driving a Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 for Goldex Racing with B-Max Engineering.

However, the legendary designer’s Japanese sports car racing debut has been postponed for the time being.

Newey, who was set to share the #200 Goldex GT-R with team owner Ryuji “Dragon” Kumita, and fellow Brit Joe Macari, has been asked to spend the weekend at Red Bull Racing to aid the development of their RB15 chassis, following their stunning victory in the F1 Austrian Grand Prix.

While Newey’s absence certainly takes a bit of mainstream intrigue out of this weekend’s race, the plan according to Kumita is for Newey to appear in another race this season, either at Twin Ring Motegi or at Okayama International Circuit.

His son Harrison races for Tairoku Racing in ST-X, but the #300 Tairoku GT-R has also been withdrawn as team owner and gentleman racer, Tairoku Yamaguchi, continues to recover from an undisclosed ailment that has sidelined him from racing. Our best wishes, of course, are with Yamaguchi-san for a swift recovery.

At the top of the ST-X standings, GTNET Motor Sports lead the way by 24 points. Teruhiko Hamano, Kazuki Hoshino, and Kiyoto Fujinami are coming off back-to-back victories in 2019, including a second straight victory in the Fuji Super TEC 24 Hours in their 2015-spec #1 AIM GTNET GT-R.

Second in the points, the #9 MP Racing GT-R (Joe Shindo/Yusaku Shibata/Masami Kageyama) has been a great surprise in their first year in the top category. Should the GTNET crew hit trouble, they could be in with a shot to gain crucial points in the championship. A maximum of 32 points are available this weekend in Autopolis, including bonuses for finishing and for taking pole position.

Three cars that missed the Fuji Super TEC 24 Hours are back in the field: The #112 Sato-SS Sports Mercedes-AMG GT3 (Atsushi Sato/Yuya Motojima/Ryosei Yamashita), the #244 Max Racing Lexus RC F GT3 (Toru Tanaka/Tetsuya Tanaka/Kimiya Sato), and the #777 D’station Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3.

The team that scored the second-gen Vantage GT3’s first competitive victory is back after missing Fuji due to preparations for the 24 Hours of Le Mans. No gentleman driver is looking forward to this weekend more than Satoshi Hoshino, who’s determined to put a terrifying, frustrating Le Mans debut behind him.

D’station Racing have brought in their Super GT ace Tomonobu Fujii to take the place of Darren Turner, alongside Hoshino and Tsubasa Kondo. They’re still third in the championship, and a win could certainly help claw back their 35-point gap to the points leaders.

There are two classes where the championship could be decided as early as this weekend, including the ST-Z (FIA GT4) category!

With just 54 points available over the following two races, the #3 Endless Sports Mercedes-AMG GT4 of Yuudai Uchida, Hideki Yamauchi, and Tsubasa Takahashi can clinch the title two races early.

The Endless AMG GT4 has a 57 and a half points’ advantage over the #2 K’s Frontier Syntium KTM X-Bow GT4 (Taiyou Iida/Hiroki Katoh/Kazuho Takahashi), so if the blue Mercedes can finish ahead of the carbon grey KTM, the title is theirs. One thing working against the Endless AMG crew is their 75 kilogram success ballast handicap for winning the first three races in succession.

Four cars will enter this weekend’s race in ST-Z, including the return of the #35 SUN’s Techno First Ginetta G55 GT4 (Masaki Tanaka/Hironobu Yasuda/Masaki Kano/Keisuke Kinoshita). The Ginetta has missed the last three races after a Friday practice crash before the first round in Suzuka Circuit, and this is a car that’s aimed on being the “spoiler” in the fight for GT4 supremacy in Autopolis.

It could also be a title-clinching race for the #47 D’station Porsche 911 GT3 Cup (Tatsuya Hoshino/Manabu Orido/Kenji Hama), who lead the ST-1 class by 62.5 points over the #998 Z-Rex Advics Audi R8 LMS Cup (Jeffrey Zee/Jason Zhang/Leo Ye/Simon Chen). Just finishing the race may be good enough for the D’station Porsche to win, depending on their qualifying result – and a win would absolutely clinch it.

Down in some of the lower classes is where you’ll find plenty of extra star power in the field, and close title battles, particularly in the ST-3 class!

The top six teams are covered by 29.5 points in the standings here, starting at the top with the defending champion #38 Advics muta Racing Lexus RC350 (Makoto Hotta/Ryohei Sakaguchi/Yuui Tsutsumi), who leads the #34 Techno First RC350 (Yuya Tezuka/Riki Okusa/Shuji Maejima) by just 8.5 points.

While they’re without the services of newly-minted WEC LMP2 driver Kenta Yamashita this time, Le Beausset Motorsports and their #62 Denso RC350 will still have a star-studded trio with 2017 GT500 Drivers’ Champion, Ryo Hirakawa, joining regulars Koki Saga and Ryo Ogawa. So too will the #68 Saitama Toyopet GreenBrave Toyota Mark X, with Naoki Hattori, Shigekazu Wakisaka, and Hiroki Yoshida.

While in ST-4, the #884 Hayashi Telempu Shade Racing Toyota 86 (Katsuyuki Hiranaka/Yuji Kunimoto/Hiro Hayashi/Keishi Ishikawa) has a 26 point lead over the two-time reigning class champions, the #86 TOM’s Spirit 86 (Sho Tsuboi/Yuichi Nakayama/Takamitsu Matsui).

Between these two cars, plus challengers like the #13 Endless Sports 86 (Yuhki Nakayama/Ritomo Miyata/Naoya Gamou), and the #310 GR Garage Mito Inter 86 (Rintaro Kubo/Shinya Hosokawa/Rei Yamaguchi), the field in ST-4 is loaded with top talent. And there’s always the chance that Toyota CEO, Akio “Morizo” Toyoda, will show up as a last-minute entry for the #104 Rookie Racing team alongside his son Daisuke.

A great fight is also on hand in ST-TCR, where the top three teams in the standings, all representing Audi, are separated by only 14.5 points – led by the Fuji 24h class winners, the #45 Brin-Naub RS3 LMS (Naoto Takeda/Takuya Shirasaka/Shozo Tagahara), ahead of the #65 Phenomen Mars RS3 LMS (Hideaki Okajima/Masanobu Kato/Masato Shimoyama/Daisuke Imamura), and the #19 BRP Audi Mie RS3 (Yuya Ohta/Takeshi Matsumoto/Takuro Shinohara).

But this race could also mark the start of a comeback for the defending champion #97 Modulo Honda Civic TCR (Tadao Uematsu/Shinji Nakano/Mitsuhiro Endo/Hiroki Otsu) after a tough start to the season. And with top talents like Katsumasa Chiyo (#22 Waimarama Kizuna RS3 LMS) and Matthew Howson (#501 KCMG Annika Civic TCR) in the mix, ST-TCR isn’t a class that’ll be short of excitement!

All this and more will unfold when the green flag flies this Sunday at 11:30 AM JST (local time), live on the Super Taikyu TV YouTube channel.

Images courtesy of Pierre-Laurent Ribault, Red Bull, Aston Martin Lagonda, and the Super Taikyu Organisation (STO)