The first day of the 2022 Tokyo Auto Salon was held on Friday, at Makuhari Messe convention hall in Chiba, Japan. The public will be welcomed over the following two days of the convention, but already, many programmes were announced for the upcoming Japanese motorsports seasons.
Here’s some of the significant stories that broke from the first day of TAS:
- Honda Racing Corporation announces their 2022 Super GT activities
- The reveal of the Toyota GR GT3 Concept
- Subaru’s 2022 Motorsports programmes for Super GT, Super Taikyu, and the Nürburgring 24 Hours
- The launch of the new Toyota GR86 GT300 by apr Racing (and details of SHADE Racing’s maiden Super GT entry)
There were also some other significant developments from the floor of Makuhari Messe, all of which will be featured in this notebook.
Goodsmile Racing & Team UKYO reveal their 2022 colours
GT300 fan favourites Goodsmile Racing & Team UKYO revealed their 2022 livery, as anticipated. Their number 4 Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo will have bold, heavy splashes of lime green, incorporating design cues used by this year’s Racing Miku character illustrator ‘neco’.
GSR & Team UKYO announced their programme on Christmas Day, with no changes to the driver lineup of three-time GT300 champions Nobuteru Taniguchi and Tatsuya Kataoka.
Team Kunimitsu’s testing livery
Team Kunimitsu had a partial livery reveal, showing off the colours they’ll use in pre-season testing for the number 100 Stanley Honda NSX-GT. Team Kunimitsu have used special test liveries in years past, when Raybrig was the title sponsor of the team.
As announced by Honda, two-time GT500 champion Naoki Yamamoto and 2020 GT500 champion Tadasuke Makino will drive for Team Kunimitsu. General Manager Kunimitsu Takahashi and Team Manager Kazuhiro Kojima will continue lead the team, alongside returning Chief Engineer Satofumi Hoshi.
HELM Motorsports steps up to Super Taikyu ST-X class with Nissan GT-R
In the Super Taikyu Series Powered by Hankook, HELM Motor Sports will step up from the ST-3 class to the premier ST-X (FIA GT3) category with a Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3.
Brothers Yuya and Reiji Hiraki (pictured above, right and left respectively) will make up part of the team’s driver lineup, alongside a gentleman driver to be announced later. HELM Motor Sports was established by the Hiraki brothers in 2020 as a ‘community team’ to represent their native Ibaraki Prefecture. To that end, service mechanics from Ibaraki Nissan and Prince Ibaraki dealerships will work with the team to prepare and develop the car this season.
GTNET Motor Sports and Team Daishin return with unchanged lineup
Also exhibited was the orange number 81 Nissan GT-R GT3 fielded by GTNET Motor Sports and Team Daishin, which will take part in the 2022 Super Taikyu Series.
The team that won last year’s Fuji Super TEC 24 Hours plans to keep the same core lineup of four full-time drivers: Past GT300 champions Noboyuki Oyagi, Takayuki Aoki, and Kiyoto Fujinami; plus Noboyuki’s son Ryuichiro Oyagi, the reigning national Vita-01 one-make series champion.
GTNET/Daishin and HELM Motorsports’ cars were each on display at the C-West x AiM booth.
Busou planning GT300 and Super Taikyu ST-3 entries
Busou, a custom car parts manufacturer specializing in Nissan automobiles, is planning to imprint their name into the Japanese racing circuit as the sponsor of programmes in Super GT and Super Taikyu in 2022.
First, they exhibited a Nissan Fairlady Z34 (370Z) that will compete in the ST-3 class of Super Taikyu.
？？？ #S耐
ST-3 ラフィーネのZ34？
日産車のエアロでお馴染みBUSOUブースにて。
KONDO Racingでスーパーフォーミュラ にスポンサーしているラフィーネとGTの方でもKONDO Racingのスポンサーの福島日産のトリプルネーミングになってるね。#TAS2022 pic.twitter.com/WhOVM0qnqX— たかのりJJ (@Takanori_JJ) January 14, 2022
Busou, along pharmaceutical company Orientalbio (Raffinée), and Fukushima Nissan appear as sponsors. There are also question marks that appear where the logo of another entity – perhaps that of the team which will field this car – will be revealed at a later date.
During the day, Tetsuya Kaneko, CEO of Busou’s parent company Creare – and son of the late Impul co-founder Yutaka Kaneko – held a conference at the Busou booth.
セントラル20×BUSOUプロジェクト発表
BUSOUがスーパーGT300に参戦するらしい！
詳しくはまだ言えないらしい！
柳田真孝がこの発表会の席にいるけどまだわからないらしい。#SUPERGT #TAS2022 pic.twitter.com/uVRESp21Vq— たかのりJJ (@Takanori_JJ) January 14, 2022
Kaneko was joined by Nissan racing legend Haruhito Yanagida, founder of the Central20 tuning shop, and his son, two-time Super GT dual class champion Masataka Yanagida. In this conference, Busou announced a partnership with Central20, and more importantly, Busou announced their plans to enter the GT300 class.
Again, further details about this new project have been withheld for the time being. But according to reports from Ryuji Hirano of auto sport WEB, this will be in a collaboration with an existing GT300 squad.
