Kondo Racing Team announced via their social media channels that Kiyoto Fujinami and João Paulo de Oliveira will return to drive their number 56 Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 in the 2022 Autobacs Super GT Series.
Fujinami and Oliveira joined Kondo Racing for 2020, and won the GT300 Championship in their first season together – giving Kondo Racing their first championship trophies in Super GT. They began their championship defense in 2021 with a win in the opening round at Okayama, and finished second in the championship – despite their frustrations with the GT-R’s balance of performance settings in 2021.
Certainly one of the strongest lineups in GT300, 40-year-old veteran Oliveira is a GT300 champion, eight-time GT500 class race winner, and a champion in Super Formula and All-Japan F3; Fujinami, who turns 27 in April, has won the Fuji 24 Hours three times, and won the Fuji GT 500 Mile Race back in 2019.
For their GT300 entry, Kondo Racing will continue their ongoing collaboration with the Nissan Mechanic Challenge, a human resources initiative that gives Nissan Motor service mechanics and Nissan Automobile Technical College students the opportunity to apply their skills in the world of motor racing.
They bolster a strong Nissan GT3 customer racing fleet in Super GT, which as of today, also features Gainer’s two-pronged attack with Hironobu Yasuda and Keishi Ishikawa in the #11 car, and the new lineup of Ryuichiro Tomita and Riki Okusa in the #10 car.
