Pacific CarGuy Racing are the latest team to announce their participation in the 2022 Autobacs Super GT Series, confirming Takeshi Kimura and Kei Cozzolino as their drivers for the 2022 season.
This is the second year of the partnership between GT300 class privateers Pacific Racing Team, and CarGuy (Car Guy) Racing, who now have an expanded presence in the international sports car racing landscape.
In 2021, Pacific CarGuy Racing brought Ferrari back to the series with the latest 488 GT3 Evo. They finished all eight races last season, and the pro-am driver lineup of Kimura and Cozzolino recorded a best finish of ninth place at Autopolis.
That result, along with finishes of sixth at Mobility Resort Motegi in July, and fourth at Suzuka Circuit for Cozzolino and Naoki Yokomizo, secured 16th in the GT300 Teams’ Championship.
A new Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo chassis has already been testing at Okayama International Circuit, in preparation for the upcoming season.
This will be Kimura’s third season as a GT300 driver. The 51-year-old car collector and business real estate mogul will compete across Super GT, the GT World Challenge Asia Japan Cup, and European Le Mans Series (with Kessel Racing). There are two ELMS/Super GT clashes for Kimura to contend with: The first race at Okayama is on the same weekend as the 4 Hours of Le Castellet, and the 4 Hours of Barcelona is on the same weekend as the August race at Suzuka.
There are no such clashes for Japanese-Italian driver Cozzolino, who made three starts in Super GT between 2016-2019, then appeared in six races for Pacific-D’station Racing in 2020. 2021 was his first season competing in every race, and he finished 17th in the GT300 Drivers’ Championship. The 34-year-old is a past champion in the Esso Formula Toyota and Asian Le Mans Series GT classes, and raced in Formula Nippon (Super Formula) in 2010.
In December, Pacific Racing Team announced a partnership with virtual YouTuber (VTuber) talent agency Hololive Production. Among the Hololive talents include English-speaking VTuber Gawr Gura, who holds the distinction of having the most subscribers of any VTuber as of 2022. Gura, and Japanese talent Sakura Miko, have each treated their audiences to sim racing content on their streams – though in a much more chaotic manner than a conventional sim racer!
It has not yet been confirmed which Hololive talents will have their images adorn the #9 Pacific Hololive NAC Ferrari this year.
Motoki Jinno will continue to serve as the team principal, and the car will be prepared by the students and faculty of the Nakanihon Automobile College (NAC).
