From 1999 until 2010, Morio Nitta and Shinichi Takagi were regarded as the “Golden Pair” of Super GT’s GT300 class. In 2022, they will race together one more time.
K-Tunes Racing, the motorsport division of Okayama Toyopet group, announced their 2022 motorsports activities on Monday. Headlining these announcements was the addition of two-time GT300 champion Takagi to join the returning three-time champion Nitta, aboard the number 96 K-Tunes Lexus RC F GT3. Takagi joins K-Tunes after departing Autobacs Racing Team Aguri (ARTA) this off-season, and in addition to his new driving duties in GT300, he will serve as a team principal in Super Formula Lights for B-Max Racing.
Another past Super GT champion, two-time GT500 title winner Masahiko Kageyama, will continue to manage K-Tunes Racing as they begin their fourth season in GT300. This will be their third season supplied by Dunlop (Sumitomo Rubber) tyres.
K-Tunes Racing broke into Super GT with great success, winning in their debut season in 2018 (as a joint entry with LM Corsa), and two of their first three races in 2019, a season that saw Nitta and Sena Sakaguchi finish third in the Drivers’ Championship. After breaking away from LM Corsa in 2019, K-Tunes continued to receive technical support from INGING Motorsport until 2020, when they became a fully independent team – though this coincided with a dip in form from the aging RC F GT3, against its newer FIA GT3 brethren and a newer generation of GT300 original vehicles.
They did return to the podium in 2021 however, finishing second at Autopolis during a season where Nitta shared the cockpit with Sakaguchi, Hibiki Taira, and Kazuto Kotaka.
With Sakaguchi stepping up to GT500 on a permanent basis, K-Tunes Racing have opted to lean on the vast experience of Nitta and Takagi in the hopes of returning to the top step of the podium. Nitta turns 55 years old this coming Sunday, and Takagi turns 52 in May.
The two drivers have combined for 51 seasons in JGTC/Super GT racing (including a single GT500 campaign for Takagi), and are first and second on the all-time GT300 career wins list; Nitta leads the way with 22 victories, and Takagi is just behind him with 21.
The duo first raced together in 1999 at Fuji Speedway, driving the famous Momocorse Toyota MR2 for Tsuchiya Engineering and A’PEX Racing. They’d go on to win the GT300 titles, with Nitta winning the drivers’ championship on his own.
Three years later, Nitta and Takagi would finally win the GT300 drivers’ title together aboard the ARTA with A’PEX Toyota MR-S, giving Nitta his record third title and Takagi his first.
ARTA and A’PEX – whose racing division changed its name to “apr” by 2003 – would continue collaborating throughout the ensuing decade, fielding the mid-engined ASL Garaiya. Nitta and Takagi would come close to winning another title on multiple occasions, finishing runners-up in 2004, 2008, and 2010.
After the 2010, ARTA and apr separated into independent teams, and so did the “Golden Pair” of Nitta and Takagi. Nitta would remain with apr as they launched the hybrid-powered Toyota Prius apr GT, while Takagi went to ARTA and, eventually, won his second title in 2019.
