On Friday, HELM Motorsports announced that it would begin competing in the Autobacs SUPER GT Series GT300 class in 2024.
HELM Motorsports was established in 2020 by racing brothers Yuya and Reiji Hiraki, who had each achieved individual successes in the lower categories of Japanese single-seater racing. The Hiraki brothers created the team to serve their local community of Ibaraki Prefecture through competing in the highest levels of Japanese motorsport. They purchased the nearby Motegi factory of Le Beausset Motorsports, the team which gave the Hiraki brothers their first significant opportunities in single-seaters, and began racing in Super Taikyu and the FIA F4 Japanese Championship.
In 2021, HELM Motorsports and the Hiraki brothers scored the ST-3 class win at the Fuji Super TEC 24 Hours, and moved up to the premier ST-X class in 2022 with a Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3. With the help of gentleman driver Yutaka Toriba and Fuji guest star Shaun Thong, they would go on to take the overall victory in the Fuji 24h and then win the ST-X championship, all in their first season of GT3 competition.
This year the team made a splash by signing GT Academy alumnus and former Nissan GT500 driver Jann Mardenborough to a one-off drive in this year’s Fuji 24h, ultimately falling short in their bid to win the race for the second year in a row.
“Thanks to the support of many people, the team is now able to achieve its goal of participating in SUPER GT, which has been a goal of the team since its inception,” the Hiraki brothers wrote in their press release. “Thank you for this wonderful opportunity.”
HELM Motorsports will announce its car, tyre supplier, and driver line-up at a later date. The press release says that HELM is considering drivers from the FIA F4 Japanese Championship as part of its GT300 plans.
This is now the third new or returning team that has declared its entry into the GT300 class for the upcoming season, following PONOS Racing and its new Ferrari 296 GT3 driven by Kei Cozzolino and Lilou Wadoux, and D’station Racing, which is returning to the series after a three-year absence.
Feature image © Super Taikyu Organisation (STO)
