Grid Motorsports will enter the Super Taikyu Series Powered by Hankook for the first time this season. Their #888 Mercedes-AMG GT3 will be driven by Singapore-based Australian, Martin Berry, who has also been named the team principal.
Two past GT300 champions, Shinichi Takagi and Haruki Kurosawa, will join Berry on the driver lineup – as does Daisuke Yamawaki, who is also the project manager for Grid Motorsports. The team have also said that they will have a factory “Mercedes-AMG Performance Driver” with the team, to be announced at a later date.
Grid Motorsports can be considered a successor to 2020 ST-X class champions Mercedes-AMG Team HIRIX Racing. Along with having the same number, Yamawaki and Takagi won the series title driving for HIRIX, and Fuji-based racing garage Kingelt will be in charge of vehicle maintenance for Grid Motorsports, just as they were at HIRIX.
A second Mercedes-AMG GT3 will enter the ST-X class, as Tatsuya Kataoka’s TK Racing Invitation (TKRI) team moves up after two seasons in ST-Z. They will use the same chassis run by Goodsmile Racing & Team UKYO in last year’s Super GT Series, and RS Fine will handle vehicle maintenance.
Daisuke Matsunaga (registered as ‘DAISUKE’), and Yuya Motojima, both return from last season’s GT4-based effort; 2013 GT300 champion Yuhki Nakayama will round out the driver lineup.
These two Mercedes entries will join the Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3s from GTNET Motor Sports and HELM Motor Sports, who confirmed their entries at the Tokyo Auto Salon in January. Reigning champions D’station Racing are expected to return with their Aston Martin AMR Vantage GT3, and so too will apr Racing, who tested their Lexus RC F GT3 at Suzuka this past week.
SHADE Racing will supplement their brand new Super GT team with a multi-class effort in Super Taikyu.
Their #885 Toyota GR Supra GT4 will feature Super GT drivers Katsuyuki Hiranaka and Eijiro Shimizu, driving with gentleman racer Hiro Hayashi. SHADE Racing will also defend their ST-4 class title with the new second-generation Toyota GR86 (ZN8), driven by Yuji Kunimoto, Keishi Ishikawa, and Shinnosuke Yamada.
Another confirmed entry for the ST-Z class is Birth Racing Project (BRP), who will run a full season with the newest Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 Clubsport MR. Kenji Suzuki, Takeshi Matsumoto, and Kohei Fukuda will make up three-fourths of the driver lineup, with the last driver to be announced later.
Team Fukushima are a brand new organisation, dedicated to the revitalisation of Fukushima Prefecture – which has had difficulty recovering economically from the Great Tohoku earthquake and tsunami of 2011, a prospect made only more difficult due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Since the Great East Japan Earthquake, Fukushima Prefecture has not yet returned to its pre-earthquake level, and the new coronavirus has affected our lives and economy. So we thought we’d like to liven up Fukushima Prefecture with our favorite cars!” the team stated in their introductory press release.
“We will provide an opportunity for the people of Fukushima Prefecture […] to come together and raise the spirits of our team. In addition, we will welcome and train professional racers and race queens to make this a team which can say it is made in Fukushima Prefecture!”
Their ambitious project will be headlined by a ST-3 class entry with the number 311 Nissan Fairlady Z34 (370Z). Hirokazu Suzuki, the president of Fukushima-based automotive customisation shop Arios, will be the team manager. Suzuki raced with Corolla Shin-Ibaraki (C.S.I) Racing in the ST-Z class last year, driving their Toyota GR Supra GT4.
The team will also feature an all-pro driver lineup headlined by two-time GT500 and Super Formula champion Tsugio Matsuda. Rintaro Kubo and Yusuke Shiotsu join Suzuki in moving over from C.S.I Racing, and Ai Miura, who raced with SHADE Racing in 2021, completes the four-driver lineup.
eSports racer turned real-world driver Mamoru Okada has secured a full-season drive with reigning ST-2 class champions Shinryo Racing Team, driving their number 7 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X.
Okada, 26, has been a mainstay in top-level Gran Turismo Sport competitions including the Toyota GR Supra GT Cup and the Autobacs JeGT Grand Prix series. He completed his first season of ‘full-carbon’ racing in the Mazda Roadster Party Race series, and made a one-off appearance in the 2021 S-Tai finale driving an ST-5 class roadster.
He is the latest of a number of prominent Japanese sim racers who have received genuine opportunities to excel in real-world endurance racing. Two-time ST-3 class champion Yusuke Tomibayashi competed in the Virtual Le Mans Series this winter, and is entering the frame for a drive in Super GT.
Super Taikyu’s non-compulsory test day at Fuji Speedway is scheduled for 23 February.
