On Saturday, CarGuy MKS Racing officially announced its debut season lineup for the 2025 Autobacs SUPER GT Series.
The team announced that Zak O’Sullivan and Rikuto Kobayashi will drive full-time in the #7 Ferrari 296 GT3, competing in the GT300 class as a new entry and forming the youngest driving combination in the series.
O’Sullivan, 20, will begin a dual campaign at the highest levels of Japanese motorsport, pairing his new GT300 programme at CarGuy MKS with his Super Formula Championship rookie season at Kondo Racing. Before coming to Japan, he enjoyed a successful career in British national and European single-seater racing, as the champion of the 2021 GB3 Championship, the runner-up in the 2019 Ginetta Junior Championship, 2020 F4 British Championship and 2023 FIA Formula 3 Championship.
O’Sullivan also won the 2021 Aston Martin Autosport BRDC Award as the top young driver in the United Kingdom. He joined the Williams Racing Academy in 2022, and ran his first Free Practice session for Williams at the 2023 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. But O’Sullivan left the programme after the 2024 season, not long after he pulled out before the end of his rookie FIA Formula 2 campaign due to a lack of funds.
He’ll be joined by Kobayashi, who enters his second season of GT300 racing after transferring from apr. The 19-year-old is a top prospect of the Toyota Gazoo Racing Driver Challenge (TGR-DC) academy, boasting success in single-seaters including the 2023 FIA F4 Japanese Championship and finishing runner-up in the 2024 Super Formula Lights Championship. Kobayashi has also enjoyed success in esports, as a former competitor in the Gran Turismo World Series which also launched the likes of Igor Fraga and Yusuke Tomibayashi towards sustained real-world racing success.
Kobayashi had previously been announced as the third driver at Saitama Green Brave on 21 January, where he would have driven alongside Hiroki Yoshida and Seita Nonaka in the series’ longer-distance events.
CarGuy (or ‘Car Guy’ as they’re known in ACO-sanctioned racing) owner Takeshi Kimura will serve as the General Manager and as a reserve driver for the team, though his primary driving focus will be in the 2025 European Le Mans Series. Misato Haga, the founder of MKS Racing and the first woman to win a championship as a GT300 Team Director, will be the Team Director of the #7 Ferrari, which will run on Yokohama Advan tyres.
Former K-tunes Racing Chief Engineer Kunihiko Nakai will join CarGuy MKS in the same role, and Keita Sawa will also serve as a reserve driver alongside Kimura. Sawa has not raced in SUPER GT since the 2012 Suzuka 1000km, though he has made 15 FIA World Endurance Championship starts from 2016-2019 with Clearwater Racing.
The new team will make its first on-track appearance at the second official SUPER GT pre-season test, at Fuji Speedway on 29/30 March.
Elsewhere on the grid, Team Mach has signed former Honda factory driver Iori Kimura to drive the #5 Mach Syaken Air Buster Toyota 86 MC (Dome MC86), the sole surviving GT300 Mother Chassis in active SUPER GT competition. Kimura will join Yusuke Shiotsu, who returns to Team Mach for his second season aboard the Mach Syaken MC86.
A graduate of the Honda Formula Dream Project, Kimura is a GT300 class race winner, taking his first victory at Mobility Resort Motegi in 2022. He won the Super Formula Lights Championship in 2023, and made his first GT500 driving appearances the same year as an injury substitute for Naoki Yamamoto at Team Kunimitsu. However, Kimura was released after one season in Super Formula with B-Max last year.
Tetsuji Tamanaka’s privateer team has not finished better than 12th in the last two seasons. Their last top-ten finish was in 2022 at Suzuka, where Reiji Hiraki and Yusuke Tomibayashi finished second.
Images © CarGuy MKS Racing, GTA
