Toyota Gazoo Racing saved a special present for Christmas Day: The manufacturer announced its range of domestic racing activities for the 2025 season, following the preceding announcements of Toyota’s WEC Hypercar programme which retains all six drivers from last season.
Similarly, in the Autobacs SUPER GT Series’ premier GT500 class, Toyota will again field six GR Supra GT500s, and five teams will retain the same line-up as in 2024 – a year where Toyota won the GT500 Championships with six victories in eight races.
This includes TGR Team au TOM’S, which retains the services of defending GT500 Drivers’ Champions Sho Tsuboi and Kenta Yamashita. As such, TOM’S will exercise its option to run the champion’s number 1 for the first time since 2018, when Ryo Hirakawa and Nick Cassidy came off of their title-winning season the year before.
But the big story for Toyota in GT500 is the return of Argentine driver Sacha Fenestraz, who has rejoined Toyota Gazoo Racing as a works driver following a difficult two-year run with the Nissan Formula E Team.
Fenestraz will join TGR Team SARD in the #39 Denso Kobelco SARD GR Supra, reuniting with his former TOM’S co-driver and 2021 GT500 Champion, Yuhi Sekiguchi. He previously scored seven podiums with TOM’S from 2020 to 2022, including a maiden victory at Fuji Speedway in August 2022 alongside Ritomo Miyata.
All other teams and drivers remain the same from 2024: Kazuya Oshima & Nirei Fukuzumi at TGR Team Eneos ROOKIE, Ukyo Sasahara & Giuliano Alesi at TGR Team Deloitte TOM’S, Hiroaki Ishiura & Toshiki Oyu at TGR Team KeePer Cerumo, and Yuji Kunimoto & Sena Sakaguchi at TGR Team WedsSport Bandoh.
All of Toyota’s GT500 teams will retain their existing long-term tyre supply contracts with Bridgestone, except for TGR Team WedsSport Bandoh, which continues its long-standing relationship with Yokohama Advan tyres.
After six seasons and three wins with TGR Team SARD, Yuichi Nakayama has been dropped from the GT500 fleet, but will remain with Toyota as a works driver – and has already been confirmed to be part of TGR’s plans for the Eneos Super Taikyu Series and Nürburgring Langstrecken Serie.
He’ll join an 11-driver pool of drivers that will represent Toyota in Super Taikyu/NLS – featuring Tsuboi, Ishiura, Oshima, Alesi, Yamashita, Tatsuya Kataoka, Naoya Gamou, Masahiro Sasaki, Kazuto Kotaka, and Takamitsu Matsui.
In addition, Kotaka has been appointed as Toyota’s GT500 reserve driver after racing for parts of six seasons in GT300.
Tsuboi, Yamashita, Fukuzumi, Oshima, Fenestraz, Sakaguchi, Oyu, and Kotaka were also named to TGR’s Super Formula rosters for 2025. They are joined by TGR WEC driver/manager Kamui Kobayashi, former Hertz Team JOTA WEC driver Oliver Rasmussen, former Williams Racing Academy F2 prospect Zak O’Sullivan, current Nissan works driver Mitsunori Takaboshi, and two prospects of the Toyota Gazoo Racing Driver Challenge (TGR-DC) programme: Hibiki Taira and Seita Nonaka.
Taira and Nonaka will continue their SUPER GT GT300 activities as well, with Taira staying at muta Racing INGING after two runner-up finishes in the GT300 Championship, and Nonaka staying at Saitama Green Brave for a second season.
Fellow TGR-DC prospect Rikuto Kobayashi (no relation!) is also set to stay in GT300 for a second season with a team to be confirmed later, while female driver Miki Koyama is heading to apr in one of its two cars. Meanwhile, Jin Nakamura will be heading on a foreign excursion tour out of sports car racing for the time being, enrolled in the Formula Regional European and Middle East Championships.
Toyota’s full range of GT300 programmes will be announced at a later date.
TGR-DC has also gained a new foreign member for the first time in over 15 years, as French driver Esteban Masson has joined the academy for 2025. Masson is currently competing in the Asian Le Mans Series for CarGuy Racing, after finishing second for the team in the 2024 European Le Mans Series, and driving alongside CarGuy’s Takeshi Kimura at Akkodis ASP Team in the FIA WEC.
For 2025, Masson will run in the European Le Mans Series’ LMP2 class with a team to be named later, and will also run in the Super Formula Lights Championship with TOM’S, where he’ll be joined by Rikuto Kobayashi and Formula 4 graduate Yuki Sano.
Masson’s step up to ELMS’ LMP2 category will offset the departure of Ritomo Miyata, who has elected to focus exclusively on his second season of Formula 2 with ART Grand Prix over a second season in LMP2.
Images © Toyota Gazoo Racing
