D1 Grand Prix 2026 Rounds and Venues: Can You Get There by Train?

The 2026 D1 Grand Prix is ten rounds over five weekends, and the season final, Rd.9 & 10, runs on 14–15 November 2026 at a special venue in Odaiba, Tokyo, which D1 announced on 13 September 2026 (checked on the official round page on 28 September 2026). Only one venue fails the car-free test: Aichi Sky Expo is a 5-minute walk from Chubu Centrair International Airport and Odaiba sits on central Tokyo’s rail network, but Autopolis (Oita) has no scheduled public transport at all.

Round by round, the season runs Rd.1 & 2 at Aichi Sky Expo (Aichi) on 8–10 May, Rd.3 & 4 at Tsukuba Circuit (Ibaraki) on 26–28 June, Rd.5 & 6 at Ebisu Circuit (Fukushima) on 25–27 September, Rd.7 & 8 at Autopolis (Oita) on 23–25 October, and Rd.9 & 10 at the Odaiba special venue (Tokyo) on 13–15 November. Two exhibition events sit outside the championship and carry no points: KICK OFF DRIFT at Makuhari Messe (Chiba) on 10–11 January and RD.ZERO at Fuji Speedway (Shizuoka) on 19 April. The dates were first checked on the official D1 pages on 10 September 2026 and the final’s venue again on 28 September 2026 (the main series table still printed T.B.A. for it that day, while the round page and the 13 September announcement both name Odaiba), and the series table itself notes that the schedule is provisional as of publication and may change without notice.

That much you can copy off a schedule page anywhere. The part nobody publishes is whether you can stand at any of these gates without a Japanese-registered car — which, if you are flying in, is the question that decides the trip. We have measured these routes one by one, and the answers are not the ones you would guess.

Which D1 Grand Prix 2026 rounds are left?

Two: Autopolis in October and the Odaiba final in November. Here is the full season with the verdict attached.

The two exhibitions are the easy ones. Makuhari Messe is about a 5-minute walk from JR Kaihimmakuhari Station, roughly 30 minutes from Tokyo Station on a Keiyo Line rapid. Fuji Speedway is thinner: at weekends the Fujikyu Mobility Fuji Reien line calls at the gates from Suruga-Oyama Station, but on a weekday there is one bus in and one bus out, as our Fuji Speedway Drift Park guide sets out.

Why does the same round show two different date ranges?

Because they are two different things. The main 2026 D1 GRAND PRIX SERIES table prints a three-day Friday-to-Sunday window; the site’s own navigation menu prints two days for the same round — Ebisu as 9月26日-27日, Autopolis as 10月24日-25日. Neither is wrong. The Friday is official practice and qualifying, and the Ebisu ticket page says so outright: 金曜日の観客入場はございません, no spectator admission on Friday.

Can you get to each D1 Grand Prix venue without a car?

Sort them by how the last kilometre works and the season splits three ways.

The detail, venue by venue:

Aichi Sky Expo is the outlier, and it inverts what people assume about Japanese motorsport venues. It is an exhibition hall built beside Chubu Centrair International Airport on Tokoname’s reclaimed island, and its official access page gives the distance as 徒歩5分 — five minutes on foot. You can land internationally, walk to the drifting, and sleep on the same island. No other round comes close.

Can you get to Ebisu Circuit without a car?

Yes — right up until the last 20 minutes, and that is where trips planned from abroad fall over.

The rail half is published and easy: Tokyo to Koriyama on the Tohoku Shinkansen, then a JR Tohoku Line local to Nihonmatsu Station. From there, two options, both with a catch. Fukushima Kotsu route 16-1 runs from the Nihonmatsu-eki-iriguchi stop to Safari Park-mae — the entrance of the safari park whose grounds Ebisu Circuit shares — for ¥500 in 28 minutes, four times a day. On a weekday the first departure is 11:23, reaching the park at 11:51, which is most of a race day gone; the weekend timetable starts at 7:48 and is the one that works. The alternative is a taxi of about 20 minutes, and the two Nihonmatsu firms publish no fare, offer no English page and take bookings by phone. Our full route to Ebisu Circuit from Tokyo has both timetables.

No shuttle has been published for the 26–27 September round. Ebisu posts a bilingual bus sheet for its own matsuri (祭り, festival) weekends, usually about a week out, but the D1 Grand Prix pages list no shuttle at all, and none had appeared as of 10 September 2026.

What about Autopolis and the Odaiba finale?

Autopolis is the honest no. The circuit sits in the hills above Hita, Oita Prefecture, and its own FAQ answers the public-transport question in one sentence: shuttle buses run from Kumamoto City and Hita City when a big event is on, but at ordinary times you should come by car or taxi. As of 10 September 2026 neither the Autopolis D1 GRAND PRIX SERIES page nor the D1 ticket post for the round mentioned a shuttle for 23–25 October. Plan on driving, and read our Kyushu drift tracks guide before you build a week around the region.

The finale is the easy one. D1 announced on 13 September 2026 that the final returns to Odaiba, and the official Rd.9 & 10 page now names the event 2026 TOKYO DRIFT, lists the venue as the Odaiba special venue (お台場特設会場) and the days as Saturday 14 and Sunday 15 November, and says tickets are planned for mid-October. The exact site within Odaiba had not been published when we checked on 28 September 2026. What the 2025 final looked like on the ground, and which rail lines serve it, is in our D1GP Odaiba 2026 dates, tickets and access guide.

Where do D1 Grand Prix 2026 tickets stand today?

Split three ways, and the split matters more than the prices.

Reserved seating at Ebisu was already thinning when we looked — the SS tier was marked 完売, sold out, in both the advance and same-day columns — so the September round is a buy-now event. Autopolis is the opposite problem: you cannot price the ticket yet, but you can already tell the transport will cost more than the seat. How D1 sells tickets, and what each seat gets you, is in our D1 Grand Prix spectator guide.