38 Entries For Super Taikyu Race In Autopolis

The Eneos Super Taikyu Series Empowered by Bridgestone returns this weekend with the five-hour Super Taikyu Race in Autopolis, scheduled for Sunday 28 July. It’s the third round of the season and the first race since the Fuji Super TEC 24 Hours.

Zhongsheng ROOKIE Racing’s #1 Mercedes-AMG GT3 won the Fuji 24 Hours for the second consecutive year and currently leads the ST-X Championship standings. But the #1 Mercedes will not take part in this weekend’s race – a decision that will leave just four ST-X class GT3 cars in the field, headlining the 38-car grid (Update: Now 37 cars following the withdrawal of ST-4 Team G/Motion’.)

This represents a big opportunity for the #23 TKRI Mercedes-AMG GT3 to take the championship lead after second-place finishes in the first two rounds. Kosuke Matsuura will accompany the regular trio of Daisuke Matsunaga, Yuya Motojima and Yuhki Nakayama in the #23 car.

The #33 Craft-Bamboo Racing Mercedes will make its second appearance of the season, in what is understood to be a five-race commitment from the Hong Kong-based squad that will run through the penultimate round at Okayama. Jeffrey Lee, Kakunoshin Ohta, Dean Chen, and Liang Jiatong will share driving duties in the J-Fly Racing sponsored #33 car.

Also back in action is the #81 GTNET MotorSports Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 which made a cameo appearance in the SRO Japan Cup Fuji round. Nobuhiro Imada is scheduled to be the team’s ‘A’ driver alongside Kiyoto Fujinami, Natsu Sakaguchi, and 20-year-old debutant Taichi Watarai.

11 GT4 cars are entered in the ST-Z class, where Saitama Green Brave carries a slim eight-point lead in the standings over SHADE Racing, who won the class at the Fuji 24 Hours.

Buzz Progress Racing’s #111 Mercedes-AMG GT4 is back for its second start of the year, offsetting the departure of the Thai-flagged 2W Zoomies/GR Garage Yamaguchi-Shunan team that made its debut at Fuji.

Team Noah’s Mach GoGoGo-liveried #5 Toyota GR Supra GT4 also makes its second appearance of 2024, hoping to do well at the Fukuoka-based team’s home round.

For the first time in 2024, the ST-TCR class will be present, with three entries: Two new Honda Civic TCRs from M&K Racing, and one Audi RS 3 LMS from Audi Team Show Apex, carrying the famous EVA-01 livery from the Neon Genesis Evangelion franchise.

In the #97 M&K Civic, Mitsuhiro Endo and Formula One alumni Shinji Nakano will share driving duties with 2021 Kyojo Cup Champion Shion Tsujimoto and amateur driver Ryusuke Masumoto. The #98 M&K Civic is anchored by Shigeru ‘Kizuna’ Sato, alongside Lee Jung Woo, and Sena Yamamoto.

Yoshinari Fujiwara, Shigetomo Shimono, Ryosuke Kagami and Genki Nishimura will drive the #430 Audi that had intended to race for the first time at the Fuji 24 Hours.

In ST-Q, the big story this weekend is the Super Taikyu debut of the new Subaru High Performance X Future Concept, entered by Team SDA Engineering.

The High Performance X Future Concept is adapted from the latest Subaru WRX S4 sports sedan. Powered by Subaru’s latest FA24 flat-4 turbocharged engine, the new all-wheel-drive Subaru concept racer also uses P1 Fuels carbon-neutral fuel (CNF), just like the preceding Subaru BRZ CNF Concept. Subaru road car engineers Kazuhiro Ito and Masafumi Hanazawa will share the driving duties with SUPER GT GT300 Champions Takuto Iguchi and Hideki Yamauchi.

ST-Q features five cars in total as ROOKIE Racing brings both the #32 Toyota GR Corolla H2 Concept and the #28 Toyota GR86 CNF Concept to Autopolis. Mazda Spirit Racing will only be represented this time by the #55 Mazda3 Bio Concept. And GR TOM’S Spirit will enter the GT4-based #92 GR Supra Racing Concept.

These cars will headline a grid that also features the production cars from the ST-2 and ST-4 classes, as well as the sole ST-1 class KTM X-Bow GTX.

The 2024 Super Taikyu Race in Autopolis will air live and free this Sunday on the Super Taikyu Series official YouTube channel, Super Taikyu TV.

Images © STO, Subaru