2008 GT500 Petronas Tom's SC430

PETRONAS TOYOTA TEAM TOM’S SC430 - 2008 GT500 class team champion.

The XANAVI NISMO GT-R and PETRONAS TOYOTA TEAM TOM’S SC430 won the driver and team title for the 2008 GT500 Class respectively.

No.23 Xanavi Nismo GT-R - 2008 GT500 Class Driver Champion.

The 2008 SuperGT seasons may have ended sometime ago. But my collections for the 2008 cars continue... Ebbro just released the SC430 models in between December 2008 and January 2009.
I quickly ordered one early this month. After a long wait finally the parcel arrived yesterday. Well, I have to admit I'm a great fan of toyota of late cause it make up of 15 percent of my overall collection. Toyota Team Tom's won the GT500 Class Driver & Team with Lexus SC430 in 2006 - the debut season of SC430. In between 2006 and 2008 they raced in different colors due to different sponsors.

2006 season primary sponsor- OPEN INTERFACE INC.

2007 season primary sponsor- HOUZAN NISHI SAKE BREWING Co.,Ltd.

For the 2008 seasons Petronas became their primary sponsor. TEAM TOM'S (TOM'S CO.,LTD) gave a press conference at their new factory in Gotemba to announce the outline of their plans for the 2008 SUPER GT series. Driver's lineup of Juichi Wakisaka and Andre Lotterer goes without a change for the third season in succession. Under the supervision of the team manager Masanori Sekiya, they shared the wheels of Lexus SC430 on Bridgestone tires. The SC430 was in white with a blue line, which is a corporate color of the team's main sponsor Petronas', therefore making entry in the series as PETRONAS TOYOTA TEAM TOM'S.

From the both tables it is clear that the Lexus SC430 was competitive in the 2008 seasons with both PETRONAS TOYOTA TEAM TOM'S and ZENT TOYOTA TEAM CERUMO occupying the top two spots in the Team ranking with 94 and 93 points respectively. On the other hand in Driver standing the ZENT TOYOTA TEAM CERUMO is better than the PETRONAS TOYOTA TEAM TOM'S with 72 points, 4 point short of Champion Xanavi Nismo.

Zent Cerumo SC430 was driven by former GT500 champion Yuji Tachikawa and Richard Lyons in 2008 season. Very competitive in the early stages - won round 3 at FUJI. But lost ground to the Xanavi Nismo in between round 4 and 8 - few unfortunate occasions e.g. facing components failure. Done well in the last round at SUZUKA which they nearly pip the Petronas Tom's for the team title.