The final full-time seats in the 2024 Autobacs SUPER GT Series have been secured at Team Mach, where two-time GT300 Champion Kiyoto Fujinami and Yusuke Shiotsu will drive the #5 Mach Syaken Air Buster MC86.
Both drivers made their respective announcements on social media yesterday before the start of the second official pre-season test at Fuji Speedway.
Team Mach is entering its tenth season running the Dome-constructed Toyota 86 MC, and is the sole remaining team running a car built to the GT300 Mother Chassis regulations. Team Mach struggled throughout 2023 and failed to score points for the first time since 2016, despite taking on a newer chassis sold to them by INGING Motorsport.
Fujinami and Shiotsu first tested the #5 Mach MC86 in a GT Entrants’ Association (GTE) sanctioned test at Fuji Speedway in February and have since returned for the two official pre-season tests, making their eventual signing inevitable.
For Fujinami, this marks his return to Team Mach for the first time since his debut year in 2017 and a one-off appearance at the 2018 Fuji GT 500 Mile Race. The 28-year-old driver won two championships in three years at Kondo Racing alongside João Paulo de Oliveira from 2020 to 2022.
However, last year he was effectively exiled from SUPER GT after details of an alleged attack on a member of his privateer racing team KF Motorsports emerged in January, days before he was set to be confirmed as a Nissan GT500 driver.
Fujinami has since publicly apologised for the incident, though his 12-year affiliation with Nissan – which also yielded three Fuji 24 Hours overall wins and two Super Taikyu ST-X class championships – concluded at year’s end.
Shiotsu, meanwhile, joins Team Mach after spending the last two seasons at Gainer as the third driver behind Ryuichiro Tomita and Riki Okusa in 2022, and then in 2023 behind Tomita and Keishi Ishikawa.
He has entered nine races over the last two seasons – but so far, he has only driven in three of them. In those three races, his best finish was a seventh-place in Autopolis 2022. Shiotsu did not drive in either of Gainer’s two victories at Fuji in the Spring 2022 and Summer 2023 races and thus, is not officially credited by the GT Association as a two-time race winner.
In his new role, the 25-year-old from Shikoku Island will be guaranteed to drive in every race and contribute to the team’s results.
Feature image © GTA
