Chamberlain will appear at two races in Japan in 1999.
The races are at Suzuka on August 22 and at Fuji on November 7.
At Suzuka, Chamberlain will run a single car (chassis C9) owned by Belmondo Racing on their behalf for drivers contracted to Belmondo.
At the Fuji 1000 kms, Chamberlain will run our own cars, one of which is in conjunction with Team Goh.
| Cars Entered by Chamberlain | Chassis C9 |
| Drivers | Seiji Ara & Hisashi Wada & Hiroki Kato - C9 - Car Number 21 |
| Qualifying | Suzuka is a circuit where
local knowledge is more important than knowledge of the car and so the drivers settled
into their task quite quickly during Fridays untimed sessions. The Team were not quite so
well acclimatised. The car was running well but they were trying to come to terms with the
95F heat and 80% humidity. Qualifying on the Saturday morning brought a pleasant respite. It rained but the car ran well in the wet to finish 5th overall and lead its class with a time of 2.27:86 for the 5.8km lap. The Freisinger Porsche of Kaufman and Hane was however ominously close with a time of 2.28:73. The afternoon session was again hot but now dry and saw Katoh put in a scintillating lap of 2.08:76, over 4 seconds quicker than the following Porsches, and good enough for 6th fastest overall. |
| Race | Racing a 650hp
front engined car can be a real problem for drivers who are unused to heat. The
cockpit can get to 55C but with the temperature in the shade of the garages at 07:30 being
32C and the humidity in the high 80's things did not look pleasant. Special cool
suits were worn with an ice box in the passenger compartment, but still the drivers were
preparing for a very hard days work. The race started well enough with the Viper happily following the GT500 cars and holding 6th place and a comfortable lead over the following Porsche. However matters deteriorated rapidly when Katoh became too complacent and slid into the gravel trap at turn 2 and had to pit. The under-body was full of stones and so the mechanics had to get the car into the air, remove the under-body and take out a large quantity of gravel. This mission was completed in only 18 minutes, but when the time for the extraction from the gravel trap and return to the pit was taken into account the team had lost 9 laps to the Porsche. After that the car ran faultlessly to the finish but, with no hope of catching the leader, it finished second in class. |
| Brief Synopsis
of events (official) |
A very hot weekend. But every time the car returned with gravel, the drivers had to buy a quantity of beer equivalent to the weight of the stone removed so all was not lost for the mechanics! A great pleasure to work with three fine Japanese drivers. |
| Car Entered by Chamberlain | Chassis C16 |
| Car Entered by Team Goh | Chassis C19 |
| Drivers | Xavier Pompidou
& Vincent Vosse
- C16 - Car Number 56 Seiji Ara & Hideki Okada - C19 - Car Number 60 |
| Qualifying | Car 56 - 1st in
class, 9th overall Car 60 - 2nd in class, 11th overall |
| Race | Car
56 - DNF Car 60 - 1st in class, 7th overall |
| Brief Synopsis
of events (official) |
Everyone involved
in GT Endurance Racing knew it had to happen, and sooner rather than later! Chamberlain
Motorsport were going to win a major International race with one of their Chrysler Viper
GTS-R race cars. The 1000 km of Fuji in Japan was to be become that race. The Le Mans Fuji 1000 km was extremely important to all because, as the name suggests, it was a qualifying race for the famous Le Mans 24 Hour next June. There are so many Teams which want to race at the Sarthe in June that pre-qualifying some six weeks before the event is now part of life for the GT racers, but it is possible to by-pass this nerve racking experience by winning in either the Petit Le Mans in Atlanta, Georgia, in September or the Japanese Le Mans Fuji 1000 km in November. The importance of this event was shown by factory support in the prototype class from both Toyota and Nissan. In the GTS the Chamberlain Motorsport Viper GTS-R's were the class of the field. On this occasion one car was driven by Chamberlain regulars Vincent Vosse and Xavier Pompidou and the other by local heroes Seiji Ara and Hideki Okada, the latter car sponsored by and entered in the name of Team Goh. The other GTS Teams had brought out their best cars and with drivers such as Stephane Ortelli, Bob Wollek, Manfred Kaufmann and Alfred Heger it was obvious that they were serious. Qualifying saw the Vipers lead the field with Xavier Pompidou being fastest in a time of 1.27.10 and team mate Seiji Ara a close second in 1.27.825. The cars had been fast all weekend and the official times proved they would be hard to beat in the race. Race Day saw a change in the weather. Instead of sunshine and clear skies there was a lot of cloud about and right on cue, when the cars were on the grid and ready for the start, it rained. Wets were hastily brought to the grid and some teams changed tyres. Both Chamberlain cars chose to stay with slicks and hoped for a change in weather instead. On the pace lap Xavier Pompidou was caught out by the conditions and spun and then, mistakenly, regained his place in the field which caused him to be penalised later. After two laps under the cautionary flag the race started and immediately Xavier took control. Driving extremely well he opened up a gap of nearly 30 seconds on Ara during the first hour only to lose out during his penalty stop. Ara on the other hand kept out of the way of the problems and when his team leader fell back he took command. His Viper was lapping consistently around 1.30 seconds - a pace that few of the Porsches could manage during qualifying let alone in the race itself. The only real opposition at this time came from the Freisinger car of Kaufmann/Wollek but after 21 laps this car had an unscheduled pit stop with a blown left rear tyre. They rejoined in 16th place a lap down and now having to hope that the Vipers would have trouble. Vincent Vosse who had taken over from Xavier Pompidou was soon back into the pits with clutch problems and an early retirement. Perhaps there was hope for the Porsche's after all! Ara brought No 60 Viper in for its first stop and Okada took over. By this time the car was well in control and providing there were no problems it was not going to be caught. Simple? Not at all. 1000 km of racing is a very long way. The cars have to be driven fast but with care, and serviced regularly with fuel, brakes and tyres by the pit crew. So for a further 4 hours this is exactly what was done. The drivers kept to their schedule and the pit crew ensured that they were not stationary for more time than was necessary. Okada brought the car home to give Chamberlain Motorsport an historic win after a text-book performance. The car qualifies for Le Mans by right and the mechanics, drivers and sponsors (and team owners) all left Fuji Speedway delighted with the outcome. |