After winning the Autobacs SUPER GT Series GT500 Class championship earlier this month and becoming only the fifth driver to win both the GT500 and Super Formula Championship in the same calendar year, 24-year-old Ritomo Miyata remarked to the Japanese press at Mobility Resort Motegi: “I’ve won Formula 4, Super Formula Lights, Super Formula, and now SUPER GT. There’s nothing more for me to win in Japan. I’m ready for the world.”
His long-cherished wish to challenge the world has been granted.
Ritomo Miyata, the newest prospect of the Toyota Gazoo Racing WEC Challenge programme, will “graduate” from Japan to serve as the reserve driver for the Toyota Gazoo Racing WEC Hypercar programme, and will race full-time in the European Le Mans Series LMP2 class with COOL Racing.
In ELMS he will drive the #37 Oreca 07-Gibson prototype alongside Spanish teenage driver Lorenzo Fluxa in his first season of racing in the West.
And, in a shock announcement, Miyata will also race in the FIA Formula 2 Championship with a team to be announced at a later date, marking the first time since the shuttering of Toyota’s Formula One team that the manufacturer has sent one of its prized drivers to compete in the F1 ladder series.
“After winning both Super Formula and Super GT titles, I am very happy to take on this challenge in an international championship,” Miyata said.
“I’m excited to join COOL Racing and to participate in the European Le Mans Series this season. COOL Racing has a lot of experience, so I look forward to learning about endurance racing in the ELMS and the characteristics of an LMP2 car. I’ll learn from team staff and teammates and also do my best to contribute to the team.
“I want to express my sincere gratitude to Morizo (Akio Toyoda, Chairman of Toyota Motor Corporation) and everyone at TGR for giving me the opportunity to drive in FIA-F2 and ELMS. I have been selected as a training driver for the WEC Challenge Program starting in 2023, which has given me more opportunities to travel to Europe with the team and participate in Hypercar simulator tests with TGR-E. Everyone has been very supportive of my desire to be active worldwide. In that sense, I want to live up to everyone’s expectations, and it makes me feel once again that I want to continue to work with a sense of gratitude.
“Also very honored to have been chosen as a reserve driver for the TGR-WEC team. I’m thrilled that such an opportunity has come my way. I would like to thank Morizo, President Sato, and everyone at TGR for giving me this opportunity, as well as everyone on the European team. I want to prepare well so that I can contribute to the team whenever and however I am asked to race.”
Miyata’s Japanese “Double Championship” in 2023 is just the latest in an extraordinary domestic racing career which has followed him to this point. Miyata achieved an unprecedented feat with back-to-back FIA F4 Japanese Championships in 2016 and 2017, as he joined the Toyota Gazoo Racing Driver Challenge (TGR-DC) academy. In 2020, he won the Super Formula Lights Championship (formerly All-Japan Formula Three), and this year, he won his first Super Formula and SUPER GT championship titles with the legendary TOM’S Racing team.
Earlier this year, he made his first WEC start in the 6 Hours of Fuji in the LMGTE Am class, and he has also made appearances in the Super Taikyu endurance series and FIA World Touring Car Cup.
Diagnosed with autism as a young child, Miyata found his focus, his special interest, his purpose in motor racing – and he is one of a very small handful of neurodivergent people who have been open about their condition to participate in top-level motorsport. His on-track success has been even more impactful for others like him of all ages and walks of life who have been stigmatised in society.
Toyota racing legend and TGR Europe Vice Chairman, Kazuki Nakajima, stated: “As the WEC Challenge Program has been selecting training drivers since last year and planning Miyata’s activities for 2024, I am happy that these opportunities for F2 and ELMS were made possible, and I would like to thank all those involved. In particular, his participation in F2 was made possible by Morizo’s encouragement and support of (Ryo) Hirakawa’s opportunity to become a McLaren reserve driver along with Miyata’s own achievements in 2023.”
Hirakawa, like Miyata before him, launched from early success in Japan to get an opportunity to race in the ELMS LMP2 class from 2016-17, as the first WEC Challenge driver. After some time away from the West to achieve more success in Japan – including a GT500 title in 2017 – Hirakawa was finally rewarded with the honour of being a Toyota Gazoo Racing Hypercar driver in 2022.
“This is a great opportunity for Ritomo Miyata to gain experience in both formula and endurance racing and will open up many possibilities beyond that, depending on how hard he works. I am very happy for what the program will do in 2024, and it makes me brace myself up. We must make this program open up various opportunities. I want to create a system that allows experienced drivers to give feedback to younger drivers, just as José (Maria López) will be driving in WEC GT3,” Nakajima continued.
“I would also like to make this program a collaboration among various bases to create an environment where not only Japanese drivers but also many other drivers can challenge themselves.”
“We are thrilled to continue this relationship and we’d like to thank Toyota Gazoo Racing for the confidence they put in our team,” said COOL Racing co-founder and former TGR WEC driver Nicolas Lapierre. “Ritomo has shown his speed in all of the series in which he has competed, with many successes and championship titles. It’s up to us to help support him so that it’s also the case in ELMS, a new championship for him.
“This news fits well with our philosphy of accompanying young drivers. It’s both a certain responsibility and a nice opportunity to have such a talented driver with us. He will bring to the table his experiences from highly competitive series, which is good for the LMP2 class, itself known for competitiveness.”
Feature image © Toyota
Additional images © GT Association (GTA), Dailysportscar
