Toyota Team Tom's Supra 2002

"It's an aggressive, sexy car"

The Toyota Supra Wayne Gardner races in the All Japan GT Championship bears little resemblance to its road-going little brother. For a start its turbocharged, two-litre engine puts out a staggering 470 hp, enough to propel it to 300 km/h on the long Fuji Speedway pit straight.

Based around a steel monocoque (or cabin) and clad in ultra-light, carbon-fibre bodywork, the Supra uses sophisticated underbody aerodynamics and a large rear wing to 'glue' it to the track at speed. Air rushing under and over the car creates 'downforce' - literally air pushing down on the car - allowing very high levels of grip, late braking and stratospheric cornering speeds. It's an engineering phenomenon first used in Formula One in the seventies and known as 'ground-effect'.

"The cars are extremely quick in braking and cornering," Wayne says. "You have to have a lot of confidence in the car. You have to tell yourself you can take a corner flat out, because the car will do it even if you think you can't. It's very well balanced, but very sensitive to rear wing angles and ride height changes because of ground-effects. I love driving them, they're just like a big kart."

Power comes from a version of the two-litre engine used in World Rally Championship Corollas, but because of its small displacement, relative to some other cars in the JGTC, controlling all 470 hp is not easy.

"It's not a car you can just get in and go fast in straight away, "Wayne cautions. "It revs to 8500 and the power starts to come in hard at about 6500 rpm. It's tricky to drive on the throttle and quite often I will left-foot brake to keep the revs up (in the powerband)."

A four-cylinder engine was chosen because it is light and small and is mounted low in the chassis for better weight distribution. However, the engine still partly protrudes into the cramped cockpit creating a high-speed sauna.