The #31 apr Lexus RC F GT3 of Hiroaki Nagai, Kazuto Kotaka, and Koki Saga drove to a comfortable victory in the season-ending S-Tai Final Fuji 4 Hour Race on Sunday – as the ST-X Class (GT3) Championship went to the #14 Zhongsheng ROOKIE Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 driven by Ryuta Ukai, Naoya Gamou, Hibiki Taira, and Tatsuya Kataoka.
Fuji Speedway was the site of the seventh and final round of the 2023 Eneos Super Taikyu Series Supported by Bridgestone. Practice on Friday and Qualifying on Saturday were run under wet conditions, but despite the persistent presence of dark rain clouds over the circuit, rain wasn’t a factor in this final four-hour race of 2023.
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Zhongsheng ROOKIE Racing was the favourite to win the ST-X title in the last round. With seven entries for this race, the #14 Mercedes just needed to finish sixth in its class to clinch the series title.
Taira started from pole position, but both he and Yuya Motojima in the #23 TKRI Mercedes were overtaken by the hard-charging Kotaka in the #31 Lexus on the opening lap of the race. After a brief Full Course Yellow on the second lap, Kotaka would continue with a slim advantage over Taira, Motojima, and the #1 HELM Motorsports Nissan GT-R GT3 of Yuya Hiraki behind him.
Toyota’s future stars Kotaka and Taira ran closely together for the overall lead of the race but Kotaka would hold off Taira and begin to pull away by the time the first round of routine pit stops began after the first hour.
Nagai got aboard for his required one-hour stint as the gentleman driver of the #31. He was able to maintain a good pace relative to the second-ranked HELM GT-R and was only overtaken just before he was due to pit for routine service and hand the car off to Saga. It was at this stage that the #1 HELM GT-R took the lead of the race with the Hiraki brothers taking turns behind the wheel, saving Yutaka Toriba’s required stint for the last hour.
Toriba left the pits with a healthy margin over the #31 Lexus, but with Kotaka aboard for the final stint, he was able to eat away at the deficit and retake the overall lead with 40 minutes to go, never to be challenged.
apr got its second win of 2023, completing 134 laps in four hours and winning by a final margin of one minute and six seconds. The win was enough for apr to jump from fourth to second in the final ST-X standings.
The HELM GT-R’s title defence ended with a second-place finish, the team’s third runner-up result of the year – and a great result after receiving an early drive-through penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage.
Undisturbed after the first hour of racing, the #14 Zhongsheng ROOKIE Racing Mercedes would finish third overall to clinch the ST-X title, in ROOKIE Racing’s first year of racing in Super Taikyu’s top category – a prosperous year which also included an overall victory in the Fuji SUPER TEC 24 Hours, one of three wins on the season.
While there is no formal drivers’ championship in Super Taikyu, the four drivers will be recognised among their peers as the champions of the top flight. Gamou won his first ST-X title to go along with previous championships in ST-1 and ST-4. Taira won back-to-back series titles after winning last year’s ST-2 championship. For Ukai, a Toyota employee who’s made an honest living as a tester for road vehicles, he won his first championship in the series in his first year of racing GT3 machinery.
Fittingly, it was Kataoka, who also served as the team director of the #14 crew, who took the chequered flag and secured the title-winning third place finish. It was his first Super Taikyu championship in 15 years, his last was in 2008 with the mighty Petronas Syntium Team.
Kataoka was also relieved to avoid an on-track battle with the #23 TKRI Mercedes which he owns. Daisuke Matsunaga, Yuya Motojima, and Yuhki Nakayama finished fourth, just ahead of the #81 Daishin GTNET GT-R (Noboyuki Oyagi/Natsu Sakaguchi/Takayuki Aoki/Kiyoto Fujinami) in fifth, the last car on the overall lead lap. Drive-through penalties for FCY violations dropped the #202 KCMG Honda NSX GT3 Evo22 (Paul Ip/Ho-Pin Tung/Marchy Lee) to sixth and the #777 D’station Racing Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3 (Tatsuya Hoshino/Tsubasa Kondo/Kenji Hama/Jake Parsons) to seventh.
D’station’s return to the ST-X class was dampened somewhat, but the highly-anticipated and very popular reunion of Japanese motoring legends Manabu Orido and Nobuteru Taniguchi was rewarded with eighth place for the #47 Aston Martin Vantage GT8R.
This was in spite of having to serve a 90-second penalty stop early in the race for not fielding an amateur driver (per the series’ sporting regulations). Orido and Taniguchi ran the rest of the race at a breakneck pace to capture the #47 D’station Vantage’s first win since the season-opening round at Suzuka.
D’station Racing had a very slim chance to win the ST-1 Championship, but only if the #2 K’s Frontier KTM Cars X-Bow GTX retired from the race. It looked like the KTM’s race was over with 52 minutes remaining as the car was wheeled back into the garage with an intercooler failure. But there was enough time for the mechanics to fix that problem and return to the race with just over five minutes to go.
Thus, the #2 KTM of Taiyo Ida, Hiroki Katoh, Hiroki Yoshimoto, and Kazuho Takahashi was able to take the chequered flag in 51st overall – and second in class – to win the team’s third straight ST-1 Championship at the very end.
Saitama Toyopet GreenBrave already won the ST-Z Class (GT4) Championship in Okayama. With the pressure off in the last round, the #52 GreenBrave Toyota GR Supra GT4 of Manabu Yamazaki, Hiroki Yoshida, Naoki Hattori, and Kohta Kawaai won its fourth race of the season and finished ninth overall.
For much of the race in ST-Z, the GreenBrave Supra was locking horns against the #885 SHADE Racing GR Supra (Hiro Hayashi/Katsuyuki Hiranaka/Eijiro Shimizu). The two cars would take turns leading the class, but ultimately it was the GreenBrave crew which prevailed for the victory, 20 seconds ahead of SHADE Racing, finishing the race 1-2 as they did in the season standings.
It was the perfect way to close out a great 2023 season for Saitama Toyopet GreenBrave, who’d won the SUPER GT GT300 Championship the week prior with Yoshida and Kawaai.
The #22 Porsche Team EBI Waimarama Cayman GT4 RS CS (Shota Kitazono/Katsumasa Chiyo/Naoya Yamano) led early on after Chiyo started the race from pole position in his class. But after back-to-back mechanical failures, a third-place podium finish was more than sufficient to salvage some dignity at the end of a difficult season.
Just off the ST-Z podium was the #34 Techno First Audi R8 LMS GT4 (Masaki Kano/Riki Okusa/Hironobu Yasuda/Ryoma Henzan) in fourth, followed by the #20 Naniwa Densou Team Impul Nissan Z GT4 (Yuki Tanaka/Kazuki Hiramine/Kazuki Oki/Kazuki Hoshino), which got caught up in a first-corner accident but recovered to finish fifth. The #21 Audi Team Hitotsuyama R8 (Daisuke Yamawaki/Sean Walkinshaw/Ritomo Miyata/Yuki Ano) was sixth, and Miyata, days removed from his SUPER GT/Super Formula ‘Double Championship’, set the fastest lap in ST-Z.
With 90 minutes left, the #26 Team ZeroOne Nissan Z GT4 (Ryuichiro Otsuka/Ryuichiro Tomita/Teppei Natori/Takuro Shinohara) rolled back to its pits with smoke billowing out of the rear of the car and retired soon after. The ST-3 class #25 Nissan Fairlady Z34 lost its left-rear wheel a few minutes later, meaning Team ZeroOne would suffer a painful double-DNF in its first race back from a one-round, self-imposed exile.
Techno First would thus secure third in the ST-Z Championship.
It was a bizarre end to a truncated season in ST-TCR: Neither the #97 M&K Racing Honda Civic FL5 or the #5 AI’ Racing Civic FK7 finished the race due to mechanical problems in the last hour, and there was no winner.
AI’ Racing was set to take the win after the #97 went to the garage with an hour to go, but the #5 also stopped on track with less than 30 minutes to go and couldn’t restart. It deprived Shion Tsujimoto of her first Super Taikyu win alongside co-drivers Kazuhiro Sakai and Masaaki Fujii.
Tracy Sports with Delta, the collaboration of two Osaka-based racing teams, walked away with championships in both the ST-3 and ST-4 classes and the ST-3 class win.
In 19th place overall, the #39 Tracy Sports with Delta Lexus RC 350 saw off the challenge of its sister car, the #38, and the #15 Okabe Jidosha Motorsports Nissan to win its first race of the season. Mamoru Okada was a race day scratch from the lineup of the #39 car so it was Takumi Sanada, Takashi Ito, and Shunya Fujita who will be officially credited with the victory.
The #15 Nissan of Masaya Kohno, Masaaki Nagashima, Aruga Tomita, and Seiya Motojima fought as hard as it could and led in the first half but would finish second in its class. The #38 Lexus of Shunsuke Ozaki, Toshiki Ishimori, Yoshiyuki Tsuruga, and Takanobu Ishizuka would finish third, and it would be enough to win the ST-3 title by just five points.
This was the seventh ST-3 championship in eight years for Tracy Sports, and the first championship for the #38 team’s three full-season drivers – Ozaki, Tsuruga, and Ishimori – joined by Ishizuka from the Fuji 24 Hours onward.
In ST-4, the #86 TOM’S Spirit Toyota GR86 of Hisashi Yabuki, Takamitsu Matsui, Shunsuke Kohno, and two-time GT500 Champion Sho Tsuboi finally got its first win of 2023 after several close calls this year, in dominant fashion.
Second place was enough for the #41 Tracy Sports with Delta GR86 of Hirotaka Ishii, Yusuke Tomibayashi, and Dai Mizuno to clinch the ST-4 Championship.
Tracy Sports has dominated ST-3, but this is the team’s first ST-4 title since their old Honda S2000 won three straight from 2012-14. Ishii and Tomibayashi extended their personal streak of class championships to four, following up their three-peat in ST-3 – while one-make racer Mizuno won his first title in his first full S-Tai campaign.
Rounding out the ST-4 podium was the #18 Asano Racing Service WedsSport GR86 (Takeo Asano/Shinnosuke Ito/Kazumi Mikami/Shoya Suzuki), followed by the ST-4 Championship runner-up, the #60 Team G/Motion’ GR86 (Resshu Shioya/Takao Seto/Yohei Ono) in fourth. The #884 SHADE Racing GR86 (Masahiko Kageyama/Yuji Kunimoto/Shinnosuke Yamada/Teppei Tsuruta) painfully dropped out of podium contention in the last hour with machine trouble and slumped to fifth.
But spare a thought for Endless Sports: Their #3 Toyota GR86 (Hiroyuki Saka/Ryo Ogawa/Togo Suganami) that won the class pole position didn’t even start the race. And the heartache would only get worse from there.
In one of the most improbable final-round comebacks in recent Super Taikyu memory, the #743 Honda R&D Challenge Civic Type R of Hiroki Ishigaki, Junichi Kidachi, and Tensho Kobayashi won the race and overcame a 28.5-point deficit to win the ST-2 Championship.
While Kobayashi and Kidachi took the early lead, Honda R&D Challenge wouldn’t be in control of its championship fate. Endless Sports’ #13 Toyota GR Yaris (Masaya Hanazato/Mizuki Ishizaka/Reimei Ito/Hitoshi Okada) just needed to finish the race and be classified to wrap up the ST-2 crown. Things were going to plan – but after 90 minutes, Ishizaka brought the car into the garage. It returned to the race soon after but was only able to complete one slow lap, as smoke poured out of the exhaust, before retreating to the garage.
The Endless mechanics had to replace the engine just for the #13 GR Yaris to see the chequered flag, and even with the crew working as quickly as they could, their chances of being able to complete the minimum distance for classification were finished. But the #225 Kobe Toyopet Motorsports GR Yaris (Kengo Ichijo/Rin Arakawa/Jiei Okuzumi/Shunji Okumoto) was in the fight for the win, and Arakawa was able to pass Ishigaki for the class lead with 90 minutes left.
Yet with 40 minutes remaining, the #225 GR Yaris ground to a halt out of Advan Corner. The KTMS GR Yaris had also suffered an engine issue and went back to the garage for 20 minutes of repairs.
Kidachi drove on to an unlikely win – the team’s first since Suzuka – and an even more unlikely championship for the new Civic Type R in ST-2. It’s the first ST-2 title for a front-wheel-drive car, which had only been allowed to run in the class since 2018. It was the first Super Taikyu championship for the employee-run Honda R&D Challenge team, led by Ishigaki from the Honda R&D advanced power unit research department, and owner/driver Kidachi from the PR department.
Hideki Kakinuma, the lead developer of the Civic Type R, may have been scratched from the driver lineup after Saturday’s qualifying sessions, but this is his championship too, as the visionary who created this machine.
The two Shinryo Racing Team Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution Xes finished second and third, led by the #6 (Tomohiro Tomimasu/Yasushi Kikuchi/Masazumi Ohashi) ahead of the #7 (Kazuya Shimogaki/Keisuke Anzai/Kazunari Yoshioka).
Nihon Automobile College (NATS) completed the challenge of coming back from Tetsuya Yamano’s awful crash to start the year at Suzuka, to win the race in ST-5 and take the team’s first ST-5 Championship in the #72 Öhlins-sponsored Mazda Roadster.
With manager/driver Makoto Kanai driving a long, economical, yet competitive first stint, he set up Yamano and Toshiya Nojima for success as they took over for him in the second half. It was only fitting that Yamano would see the chequered flag at the very end. The 23-time national gymkhana champion and three-time GT300 Champion in SUPER GT had been racing in Super Taikyu for much of the last 31 years, but this was his first S-Tai season championship.
It was the first for Kanai, the head instructor of NATS’ motorsport institute, and for Nojima, the latest in a line of Japanese sim racers who’ve now found success in “full metal” racing.
The #17 Team NOPRO Mazda Demio Diesel Turbo (Hideyoshi Nishizawa/Tobio Ohtani/Misaki Konishi/Toshihiko Nogami) finished second to consolidate second in the standings for the second year in a row, followed by the #88 Murakami Motors Roadster (Hiroyuki Murakami/Soichiro Yoshida/Ryohei Arioka/Daichi Okamoto) in third, another all-Mazda podium sweep.
Six cars entered the non-championship ST-Q class and all were relatively close in terms of pace. The #271 Team HRC Civic Type R CNF-R of Hideki Mutoh, Takuya Izawa, and Hiroki Otsu finished 24th overall to take the class “win”, but only by 26 seconds ahead of the #28 ORC ROOKIE Racing Toyota GR86 CNF Concept (Keizo Kato/Kenta Yamashita/Kazuya Oshima/Daisuke Toyoda).
Finishing in third was the #55 Mazda Spirit Racing Mazda3 Bio Concept (Kazuhiro Terakawa/Kaoru Ijiri/Yutaka Seki) which has developed quickly over the course of the season, followed by the #61 Team SDA Engineering Subaru BRZ CNF Concept (Kazuhiro Ito/Hideki Yamauchi/Takuto Iguchi/Koichi Hirota).
And in 52nd overall, the #32 ROOKIE Racing Toyota GR Corolla H2 Concept (Akio “Morizo” Toyoda/Masahiro Sasaki/Hiroaki Ishiura/Yasuhiro Ogura) had its best race of the season, completing 103 laps with seven pit stops. This was only the third race for this car since the switch to liquid hydrogen in 2023, and it was run with no major mechanical issues, furthering Morizo-san’s push for hydrogen mobility in the coming years.
The 2024 Eneos Super Taikyu Series will begin on 21 April at Sportsland Sugo.
2023 Super Taikyu Series Champions (full season drivers listed)
ST-X: Zhongsheng ROOKIE Racing – Ryuta Ukai / Naoya Gamou / Hibiki Taira / Tatsuya Kataoka
ST-Z: Saitama Toyopet GreenBrave – Manabu Yamazaki / Hiroki Yoshida / Naoki Hattori / Kohta Kawaai
ST-TCR: M&K Racing – Mitsuhiro Endo
ST-1: K’s Frontier KTM Cars – Taiyo Ida / Hiroki Katoh / Hiroki Yoshimoto / Kazuho Takahashi
ST-2: Honda R&D Challenge – Hiroki Ishigaki / Junichi Kidachi
ST-3: Tracy Sports with Delta – Shunsuke Ozaki / Yoshiyuki Tsuruga / Toshiki Ishimori
ST-4: Tracy Sports with Delta – Hirotaka Ishii / Yusuke Tomibayashi / Dai Mizuno
ST-5: Nihon Automobile College – Makoto Kanai / Tetsuya Yamano / Toshiya Nojima
Images © STO, Toyota, and ROOKIE Racing
