The series was established in 1993 to replace the defunct All Japan Sports Prototype Championship and the Japanese Touring Car Championship. From the outset, the organizers imposed strict power limits and success ballast penalties, explicitly prioritizing close racing and spectator entertainment over outright technical freedom. The GT Association was formed in October 1993 to manage the series from the 1994 season, introducing the two-class GT500 and GT300 structure that persists today.
During its first years Toyota, Honda, and Nissan all committed factory efforts to GT500, creating a manufacturer battle that defined the series' identity. Foreign manufacturers were also competitive in the early years — a Porsche 911 GT2 won the teams' championship in 1995 and a McLaren F1 GTR captured both drivers' and teams' titles in 1996, the last foreign-built cars to win at that level.
The JGTC planned to expand to Shanghai and Malaysia simultaneously in 2005, but holding rounds in more than two countries would have cost the series its national championship status under FIA rules. Rather than limit expansion, the series accepted reclassification as an international championship, prompting the rename to Super GT, officially confirmed on December 10, 2004.
GT500 is the top class, contested exclusively by factory-backed teams representing Toyota, Honda, and Nissan. Since 2014 the cars have used single-turbocharged two-liter inline-four engines producing over 650 horsepower in purpose-built carbon fiber monocoques. Their aerodynamic performance places them roughly on par with the fastest non-hybrid Le Mans Prototypes.
In 2014, Super GT and the German DTM announced a joint technical program called Class 1, harmonizing GT500 and DTM specifications so a single car specification could compete in both series. Regulations were fully aligned in 2020, but DTM switched to GT3 machinery in 2021 due to manufacturer withdrawals, ending the cross-series program. Super GT maintained the Class 1 specifications, and continues to use them.
Cars representing their manufacturers have evolved substantially over the decades. The Nissan Skyline GT-R, Toyota Supra A80, and Honda NSX NA1 were the iconic GT500 machines of the JGTC era. The current lineup consists of the Nissan Z RZ34, the Toyota GR Supra, and the Honda Civic Type R FL5 — the latter marking the first four-door car permitted in GT500, entering in 2024.
GT300 hosts a wider variety of machinery than GT500. Works-backed teams, independent squads, JAF-GT specification cars, FIA GT3 cars, and the bespoke Mother Chassis platform all compete together. The GTA works with the Stephane Ratel Organisation to apply balance of performance adjustments — air restrictor sizes, minimum weights, ride heights, and boost pressure limits — to keep the field competitive across very different technical concepts.
The Mother Chassis, developed with Dome, provides a low-cost GT300 platform combining a standard carbon tub with a Nissan-derived engine. It proved popular with independent teams and was competitive enough to win the GT300 championship in 2016. Hybrid cars entered GT300 in 2012, when apr introduced a Toyota Prius GT using a V8 LMP1 engine combined with production hybrid components.
Rounds are typically sprint races between 250 and 300 kilometers with one compulsory pit stop requiring a driver change and refuelling. A longer 450-kilometer format with two mandatory stops was introduced in 2022, and 2024 added three-hour timed races for select rounds.
The Golden Week race at Fuji Speedway on May 4 is historically the series' most prestigious event, drawing two-day attendances above 90,000. It was the first event of the first official season in 1994 and has been on the calendar continuously with rare exceptions. The International Suzuka 1000km served as the premier endurance round from 2006 until its discontinuation in 2017.
Overseas rounds have been a feature since the JGTC era. Malaysia's Sepang International Circuit hosted a championship round every year from 2000 until 2014, when Chang International Circuit in Buriram, Thailand, became the overseas venue. Sepang returned to the calendar in 2025.
Super GT uses a Success Ballast system — also called Success Weight — to moderate performance differentials across a season. Two kilograms of ballast are added per championship point scored. To deter sandbagging, since 2009 the ballast is halved in the penultimate round and lifted entirely for the final race for teams that completed all rounds. In GT500, ballast is capped at 50 kilograms; above that threshold, fuel flow restrictions are applied instead.
The system has kept championships open to the final round in almost every season. Only two GT500 teams — ARTA in 2007 and MOLA in 2012 — and one GT300 team, GAINER with André Couto in 2015, have clinched the drivers' title before the last race.
Super GT's driver roster spans top Japanese talent and international names. Juichi Wakisaka, Yuji Tachikawa, and Satoshi Motoyama were the dominant GT500 champions of the 2000s. The series has also launched careers to global endurance titles: Benoît Tréluyer, André Lotterer, and Loïc Duval all won Le Mans and WEC titles with Audi after racing in Japan, while Kazuki Nakajima, Kamui Kobayashi, and Ryo Hirakawa achieved the same with Toyota Gazoo Racing.
Former Formula One drivers have found success in the series, most notably Érik Comas, who became the series' most decorated driver over a long career, and Heikki Kovalainen, who won the GT500 title in 2016. Jenson Button, the 2009 F1 world champion, drove for Team Kunimitsu in 2018 and 2019, winning the championship in his first full season.
Ronnie Quintarelli and Sho Tsuboi hold the record for most GT500 drivers' championships with four titles each. In GT300, Tatsuya Kataoka and Nobuteru Taniguchi lead the post-2005 era with three championships apiece.