Subaru wins the GT300 Championship in Super GT - A title over 20 years in the making

Subaru has a long and successful history of competing in Motorsports. In fact, they have just won a championship that they have been chasing for nearly 20 years, which is a huge accomplishment.  But if you hadn’t read the title of this article, I’d bet that you would have though that this new title would have come from somewhere in the world of Rally or off-road racing.  Subaru has been quietly venturing into road racing for a long time now.

First, there was Subaru's attempt to get into Formula 1.

More recently, Subaru has had a lot of success at the Nurburgring 24 hour endurance race.

But since the early 2000’s (and maybe the late 90’s if you stretch it a bit), Subaru has been competing in JGTC or Super GT. And after about 20 years of working to refine their program, they have finally won the coveted GT300 title in their new STI BRZ.

This is a massive accomplishment, and one that deserves a bit more mention than it has gotten to date.

I will say that I don’t know all of the details of Subaru’s history in Super GT, and if you want to read more about what they have done in this series, I’d recommend you take a look at this article from Daily Sportscar here.

The short version is that Subaru started to work with Cusco around 2000 to build a car to compete in the GT300 class. They build a few different chassis, but had a hard time finding success. Then when Subaru left the WRC after the 2008 season, they took a lot of the development from their WRC program and started funneling it into their Super GT car.

First, this was in a Legacy chassis. This was built using a version of the WRC spec EJ20 engine and an all-wheel drive platform, but that was soon converted to rear-wheel drive in an attempt to be more competitive.

Then, when the BRZ finally came to be, then built a new chassis based on that chassis. That was a better starting point, and was a lot more aerodynamic than the previous Legacy.

Not to mention, the new GT300 STI BRZ looked amazing!

Then, with the second generation BRZ being released, they built a new chassis for 2021, and this year, they finally won the GT300 championship.

What struck me in the Motorsport article about Subaru’s victory was when they said that road racing is now Subaru’s main focus. While Subaru still has a dominant presence in the ARA Rally Series in the US, they have outlasted any other manufacturer in that series so their main competition is not exactly on the same level as their program. But in Super GT, this victory is hard fought and hard won to say the least.

Could that be true? Could Subaru be a road racing marque now?

I think that the answer is that they certainly are starting to move in that direction, and the speed with which they make that shift is entirely in their control. And maybe that shift is long over due.

There is a much larger grassroots motorsports presence in road racing compared to rally racing. And here in the US, there is significantly more opportunities for exposure in road racing compared to rally as well.

Regardless of the direction that Subaru decides to take, their GT300 championship deserves a lot more fanfare than it has received to date. If you can, head over to Youtube to watch some of the races, and if you have been looking for a new and exciting series to follow, Super GT is definitely one worth exploring.

Well done Subaru, and I hope that this is just the start of what will be a lot more victories on tarmac.

- Jon Cooley