D1GP was co-founded in 2000 by Keiichi Tsuchiya and [[daijiro-inada|Daijiro Inada]] — founder of Option magazine and the [[tokyo-auto-salon|Tokyo Auto Salon]]. The first event ran in October 2000 at [[ebisu-circuit|Ebisu Circuit]], Fukushima, with 40 entrants and 3,000 spectators. In 2001 the championship was formalised as a five-round series and the tandem-elimination bracket — tsuisō, a direct import from the touge — was introduced.
D1GP's two-stage format became the global template:
Tansō (solo qualifying). Each driver runs the course alone; judges score on line, angle, speed and style.
Tsuisō (tandem battles). Bracketed elimination. The lead car sets line and angle; the chase car must match the lead's line while staying inches off the door, then the pair swaps roles. Winner is decided on combined performance across both passes.
The semi-slick S-tire was banned after Nobuteru Taniguchi won the 2001 title on them — a ruling that pushed the series back toward the lower-grip philosophy the touge had run on, and that downstream series inherited.
Among the figures most associated with D1GP across its history: Nobuteru Taniguchi, Nobuteru "Nomuken" Nomura, Masato Kumakubo (owner of Ebisu Circuit), Youichi Imamura, Daigo Saito, Masashi Yokoi, Naoki Nakamura, and [[daijiro-yoshihara|Daijiro Yoshihara]].
D1GP rounds have run at Ebisu Circuit, Bihoku Highland, Fuji Speedway and the Odaiba Special Stage.
D1GP has been the proving ground for Japan's drift tuners. [[re-amemiya|RE Amemiya]] has competed in D1GP since 2004 on a rotary-only philosophy. The [[nissan-silvia-s15|Nissan Silvia S15]] Spec-R won eleven D1GP championships across the platform's history.
[[formula-drift|Formula Drift]] was founded in 2003 by Jim Liaw and Ryan Sage as a sister to Slipstream Global Marketing — the firm that had been importing D1GP demonstration events to the US. Liaw asked D1GP to co-run a US series and was refused; that refusal is the split. Formula Drift opened in April 2004 at Road Atlanta with a format explicitly modelled on D1GP's tsuiou, and Tsuchiya appeared as judge and exhibition driver. In the years since, Formula Drift has eclipsed D1GP commercially: American drivers headline, V8 swaps (LS, Coyote, 2JZ-into-non-Toyota chassis) dominate, where Japan has stayed closer to factory engine families.
In 2010 both Tsuchiya and Inada resigned from D1GP over management disputes. By then the format they had built in 2000 was the worldwide template — Formula Drift, every regional grassroots series downstream of FD, and the broader drift competition lexicon all run on D1GP-derived tandem-elimination brackets.
[[forza-horizon-6|Forza Horizon 6]]'s drift scoring — angle weighted heavily, tandem multiplayer that mirrors the partner's angle — is the videogame translation of the tsuisō judgement D1GP codified. The Shimanoyama Drift Circuit in FH6 is styled after Tsukuba; the briefs explicitly call out areas "inspired by Ebisu" — the very circuit where D1GP began.
Gallery · 4 related images
