A new collaborative entry in the Autobacs Super GT Series will see series mainstays Pacific Racing Team partner with CarGuy Racing in 2021, and bringing Ferrari back into full-time GT300 competition along the way.
Pacific Racing, who partnered with fellow Asian Le Mans Series runners D’station Racing and Aston Martin in 2020, will enter with CarGuy and Ferrari as “Pacific CarGuy Racing” for the upcoming season. The team released the render of their blue Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo, Pacific’s third different car in as many GT300 seasons – having spent four seasons with the last-generation Porsche 911 GT3-R from 2016-19, then campaigning with the second-gen AMR Vantage GT3 in 2020. The #9 Pacific NAC CarGuy 488 will continue to be maintained by the students of the Nakanihon Automotive College (NAC), while the car will be prepared at the NAC campus in Gifu Prefecture.
It is a throwback of sorts for the Pacific Racing Team, who first entered Super GT in 2010 in a partnership with LMP Motor Sports, fielding a Ferrari F430 GTC until 2012. That programme scored a podium finish in Sepang in 2011, with Yutaka Yamagishi and Hideki Yamauchi at the wheel.
This is also the first full-season GT300 entry for a Ferrari since INGING Motorsport & Arnage Racing fielded the then-new 488 GT3 in 2017. Ferrari’s last GT300 race victory came in the 2009 season finale at Twin Ring Motegi.
CarGuy, who last entered Super GT as a standalone team in 2018, will be represented by their ever-present pro-am driver lineup of gentleman racer Takeshi Kimura and Kei Cozzolino. Kimura raced in the third and fourth rounds of the 2020 Super GT season at X Works Racing as part of a revolving door of drivers, while Cozzolino appeared in six races with Pacific and D’station last year, picking up two top-ten finishes. Kimura and Cozzolino raced together in the 2019 24 Hours of Le Mans, finishing 5th in the GTE Am class. They qualified for their Le Mans debut after a perfect 2018-19 season in the Asian Le Mans Series, winning four out of four races with Kimura and Cozzolino on the team.
CarGuy will also bring with them their own professional mechanics to help support the NAC student mechanics on the team, and will have plenty of knowledge of the 488 Evo through their experience in the AsLMS.
After a difficult season with Michelin tyres in 2020, the Pacific NAC CarGuy 488 will be supplied by Yokohama rubber this year – likely signaling the end of Michelin’s comeback to full-time GT300 competition, unless another team has picked up a supply deal for 2021. In addition, this announcement likely confirms that D’station Racing will prioritize their new commitments in the FIA World Endurance Championship over a continued entry in Super GT this year.
