The #62 HELM Motor Sports Nissan GT-R GT3 of Yuya Hiraki, Reiji Hiraki, Shaun Thong, and Yutaka Toriba came back from a three-minute penalty stop at midnight to win the 2022 Fuji Super TEC 24 Hour Race, their first overall and ST-X victory in the Eneos Super Taikyu Series powered by Hankook – and the fourth Fuji 24 Hours victory for the Nissan GT-R in five years.
After twelve hours of racing, the #62 HELM GT-R found itself two laps down following the stop/go penalty, when they’d fallen afoul of the three-hour stint time limit for driver Shaun Thong. The #81 Daishin GT-R was leading the race thanks in part to some fortunate timing with pit stops, but also thanks to the combined efforts of their drivers who hadn’t made any major mistakes.
Before sunrise, the #62 and #81 Nissans made their mandatory ten-minute maintenance stops, and with ten hours left, the #888 Grid Motorsport Mercedes-AMG GT3 went in for its maintenance time. After 15 hours, the #81 Daishin GT-R led the #62 HELM GT-R by three laps. And, even as the HELM GT-R got one of its laps back in the following three hours, it seemed inevitable that the orange Daishin GT-R would give GTNET Motor Sports their fourth Fuji 24 Hours victory in five years.
In the final four hours, HELM’s gentleman driver Toriba and Haruki Kurosawa in the #888 Grid AMG GT3 made contact in Turn 13, sending Kurosawa into a quarter-spin into the guardrail. The damage to the right-front fender would cost the Mercedes five minutes’ worth of repairs. No further action was taken by the stewards on this matter, and the Daishin crew perhaps felt even more assured of a victory.
With three hours and 33 minutes remaining, veteran driver Takayuki Aoki brought the Daishin GT-R in for a pit stop at the end of a double stint. But after refuelling, the engine wouldn’t fire, and the overall leaders had to bring their car back into the garage for emergency service.
While the GTNET Motor Sports mechanics worked to resolve what was eventually discovered to be a failed starter motor, all the drivers and other team members could do was watch as their lead slipped away. Yuya Hiraki drove the #62 HELM GT-R into the race lead, and eventually the #888 Grid AMG GT3 would recover second place. The #81 Daishin GT-R lost forty minutes in the garage, and their ambitions of victory were crushed.
After one more stint for Thong, Yuya Hiraki boarded the car in the final hour to take the car home to the chequered flag, completing 760 laps en route to the victory – HELM Motor Sports’ first since stepping up to the top ST-X category this season. Last year, their Lexus RC 350 won this race in the ST-3 class.
It’s the culmination of all that Yuya and his younger brother Reiji set out to achieve when they formed HELM Motor Sports in 2020, as a new team aimed at representing Ibaraki Prefecture. They inherited the facilities and number 62 of Tadao Tsubomatsu’s legendary Le Beausset Motorsports outfit – the team that gave the brothers their first big break in Formula 4 six years ago – and with the backing of their father Hideki, who runs a local logistics company, HELM Motor Sports have rapidly built a successful racing programme in just a little over two years, one that has now won Japan’s only 24 hour endurance race, and the crown jewel of the Super Taikyu calendar.
It’s the first overall victory for the Hiraki brothers, and for former Dotour Coffee house president Toriba, who is in his first year of driving GT3 machinery after two years in the Japanese F4 Independent Cup. Thong became a two-time overall winner: The star driver from Hong Kong became the first foreign driver to win the race multiple times, as well as the first to win for multiple manufacturers (2020 with Mercedes-AMG, 2022 with Nissan).
The #888 Grid AMG GT3 (Martin Berry/Shinichi Takagi/Haruki Kurosawa/Daisuke Yamawaki) led for most of the first half of the race before being overtaken, but they recovered from their skirmish in the last quarter of the race to finish two laps back in second overall.
And the #81 Daishin GT-R of Noboyuki Oyagi, Kiyoto Fujinami, Takayuki Aoki, and Natsu Sakaguchi would hang on to consolidate third place, 18 laps off the lead.
Finishing fourth overall as the ST-1 class winner was the #2 Syntium Apple KTM X-Bow GTX of Taiyo Ida, Hiroki Katoh, Hiroki Yoshimoto, and Kazuho Takahashi. It’s the second ST-1 class win at Fuji for the KTM, which finished third overall in its first outing a year ago with this same exact five-driver crew.
They finished two laps ahead of the #47 D’station Aston Martin Vantage GT8R (Kenji Hama/Manabu Orido/Tsubasa Kondo/Kosuke Matsuura/Jake Parsons), who were fifth overall and second in their class.
Prizes are not awared to the top finishers in the ST-Q class. But the #3 Endless Mercedes-AMG GT4 – using its specialty Endless brake parts – did, officially, finish at the top of the class order after 24 hours of racing. Ryo Ogawa, Togo Suganami, Shintaro Kawabata, and Riki Tanioka drove the non-homologated GT4 to a sixth place overall finish, completing 721 laps.
The ST-Z class which they vacated crowned a new winner: The #500 5Zigen Mercedes-AMG GT4 of Ryuichiro Otsuka, Kakunoshin Ohta, Toshihiro Kaneishi, and Iori Kimura had the class victory come back to them in the last quarter of the race.
From the first hour onward, the #22 Porsche Team EBI Waimarama Cayman GT4 RS had controlled proceedings in ST-Z. The six-driver crew of ‘Kizuna’, Katsumasa Chiyo, Naoya Yamano, Riki Okusa, Giuliano Alesi, and Lee Jung Woo had steered the Cayman to a one-lap lead after 15 laps of racing.
But with six hours and 45 minutes left, smoke began to billow from the rear of the #22 Porsche, and Chiyo brought the car back to the garage. They would never return, retiring after 517 laps due to a terminal engine failure.
The 5Zigen AMG GT4, which had qualified on pole position in its class, took the lead in the class and would go on to finish seventh overall. Kaneishi, the former Honda factory GT500 driver, embraced the two Honda Formula Dream Project (HFDP) juniors Ohta and Kimura in parc fermé as they celebrated their first 24 hour class victory, together with Otsuka, the gentleman driver who has repeatedly established himself as the top amateur in his category.
The #885 SHADE Racing Toyota GR Supra GT4 (Hiro Hayashi/Katsuyuki Hiranaka/Eijiro Shimizu/Morio Nitta/Yuhki Nakayama) finished two laps in arrears, eighth overall and second in ST-Z. And in their first GT4 outing, Audi Team Hitotsuyama finished third in its class, ninth overall, the #21 Audi R8 LMS GT4 (Hideo Honda/Ritomo Miyata/Seiya Jin/Yuki Ano/Yuuki Fujii) finishing five laps off the class lead.
Completing the overall top ten and finishing its first race virtually trouble-free was the #244 Max Racing Nissan Z Racing Concept (Tetsuya Tanaka/Toru Tanaka/Atsushi Miyake/Mitsunori Takaboshi/Hironobu Yasuda), which completed 707 laps.
The two new Nissan RZ34s finished in formation, as the #230 NISMO Z Racing Concept (Kohei Hirate/Tsugio Matsuda/Ronnie Quintarelli/Daiki Sasaki/Kazuki Hoshino) completed a gruelling 24 hours. The #230 car, running on Carbon Neutral Fuel (CNF), encountered multiple mechanical issues overnight including a broken timing belt. They completed 502 laps and finished 48th out of 49 classified vehicles – but most importantly the NISMO mechanics were able to get the car running at the end of the race.
The #52 Saitama Toyopet GreenBrave Toyota Crown RS driven by Naoki Hattori, Hiroki Yoshida, Kohta Kawaai, and Hikaru Jitosho won the ST-3 class with a 12th place overall finish. It’s the third ST-3 class win at Fuji for the GreenBrave team in five years, and the second for their Crown sedan which won on its debut in 2020. They led from the first hour onward and completed their race without any significant issues.
Second in class was the #39 Air Buster/Winmax Lexus RC 350 (Yusuke Tomibayashi/Takashi Itoh/Hirotaka Ishii/Takuya Otaki/Dai Mizuno/Gento Miyashita), which finished 15th overall, ahead of the #63 muta Racing RC 350 (Makoto Hotta/Ryohei Sakaguchi/Sena Sakaguchi) which was third in class and 16th overall.
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There was also a particularly heroic effort from Team ZeroOne and their #25 Raffinée/Nissan Mechanic Challenge Z34 (Teppei Natori/Takuya Shirasaka/Tsubasa Mekaru/Yuya Nakajima/Masataka Inoue) to the finish after multiple trips to the repair area outside the paddock. Even if they didn’t complete enough laps to be classified, the hard work of the student and service mechanics from the Nissan Mechanic Challenge programme should be commended.
Around the same time that the ST-Z class lead changed hands with the #22 Porsche’s retirement, the ST-2 class battle also had a sudden turn of events which led to the #225 Kobe Toyopet Motor Sports Toyota GR Yaris of Hibiki Taira, Rin Arakawa, and Jiei Okuzumi going on to win its class.
The #13 Endless GR Yaris (Reimei Ito/Mizuki Ishizaka/Masaya Hanazato/Hitoshi Okada) suffered a driveshaft issue which put them as many as six laps down once service was completed.
From there, the KTMS crew and their three young drivers cruised to the class win and a 19th overall finish. It was the second ST-2 class win for the GR Yaris, following ROOKIE Racing’s debut win in 2020. The #13 Endless GR Yaris fought back to close the gap to one lap and finish second in ST-2 (20th overall). Third in class was the #59 DAMD Motul ED Subaru WRX STI (Manabu Osawa/Hitoshi Gotoh/Hideto Yasuoka/Shunsuke Sato/Yoshiyuki Tsuruga, 21st overall).
In its ST-4 class debut, the #86 TOM’s Spirit Toyota 86 of Shunsuke Kohno, Takamitsu Matsui, and Kenta Yamashita took a dominant class win and finished 23rd overall, the combination of a trouble-free race from the team and their three professional drivers plus troubles for all nearby challengers leading to a 45 lap margin of victory.
The #884 SHADE Racing Toyota 86 (Keishi Ishikawa/Yuji Kunimoto/Shinnosuke Yamada/Masahiko Kageyama) was 40th overall, in the final race for their older-generation 86.
The #75 Team Noah Honda Civic TCR won the ST-TCR class with a 25th overall finish. It’s the second class win at Fuji for the team based out of Fukuoka, who previously won in 2018 with an Audi RS3.
Toshiro Tsukada, Yoshikazu Sobu, Yu Kanamaru, Koji Miura, “J” Antonio, and Yuji Kiyotaki won their class by 77 laps ahead of the #97 Racer HFDP Civic (Mitsuhiro Endo/Shinji Nakano/Kazuma Nishimura/Yusuke Mitsui/Syun Koide), which lost several hours in the garage with repairs.
And in ST-5, the diesel-powered, front-wheel drive #17 DXL/Aragosta NOPRO Mazda Demio of Kazunari Yoshioka, Tobio Ohtani, Junichi Agematsu, Hideyoshi Nishizawa, Hiroaki Yamamoto, and NOPRO founder/CEO Toshihiko Nogami took the class victory – the second for one of NOPRO’s diesel-powered subcompacts, who previously won in 2020.
The white NOPRO Demio survived to finish 28th overall, ahead of the second-placed #104 HM Racers Mazda2 (Soichiro Yoshida/Kota Sasaki/Tomomitsu Seno/Yugo Ohsaki/Ryunosuke Yoshida), and the #66 odula Tone/Motul Roadster (Takayuki Takechi/Kousei Kanto/Kyosuke Inomata/Daichi Okamoto/Yasuhiro Takasaki/Daitetsu Ueno) who completed the ST-5 class podium.
All but one of the alternative-fuelled ST-Q class entries finished the race in the end. The #61 Team SDA Engineering Subaru BRZ CNF Concept (Takuto Iguchi/Hideki Yamauchi/Koichi Hirota/Takuma Kamada/Toshihiro Yoshida) finished 31st overall, even after stopping on track and losing their rear wing they completed 624 laps. Its sister car, the #28 ORC ROOKIE Racing Toyota GR86 CNF Concept (Naoya Gamou/Daisuke Toyoda/Kazuya Oshima/Ryuta Ukai/Yuhi Sekiguchi), completed 609 laps and finished 39th overall, overcoming gearbox issues overnight.
49th and last of all the classified runners was the #32 ORC ROOKIE Racing Corolla H2 Concept (Masahiro Sasaki/Akio ‘MORIZO’ Toyoda/Hiroaki Ishiura/Yasuhiro Ogura/Jari-Matti Latvala/Norihiko Katsuta), but the big takeaway is the progress that the hydrogen-powered combustion engine car has made in a year since its debut. They completed 478 laps – 120 more than last year – with 41 pit stops, and they would have easily gotten past 500 laps if not for an early-morning accident that cost them two hours’ worth of repairs!
The attendance over three days was 38,100 spectators, which actually surpassed the previous high mark set in 2019.
With the fifth Fuji 24 Hours since its revival, and the seventh overall, in the books – Super Taikyu will return to action on 10 July for a pair of three-hour races at Sportsland SUGO.
Images © Fuji Speedway
