45 cars are on the provisional entry list for the Sugo Super Taikyu 4 Hours Race, a double-header weekend with four-hour endurance races on Saturday and Sunday. Qualifying for each race will take place on the same day.
Sunday’s main event race will be headlined by a four-car ST-X (GT3) class field. Notably, the championship-leading #666 seven x seven Porsche 911 GT3 R is not in the field after winning the first two races of the season, and finishing second in the Fuji Super TEC 24 Hours.
But Fuji 24H winners TKRI will be in the race, poised to take over the championship lead as they come into the weekend trailing the seven x seven crew by just 12 points. Tatsuya Kataoka will be back in action after a challenging Spa 24 Hours, while Shunji Okumoto and Yuhki Nakayama will look to build on their recent SUPER GT podium in Sepang.
The #33 Craft-Bamboo Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 will look to avenge its disastrous retirement at Fuji; Tom Kalender has been granted a second start in the #33 machine, joining regulars like Jeffrey Lee, Kakunoshin Ohta, and Dean Chen. In a reduced field, they’ll be joined by the #31 apr Lexus RC F GT3 (Hiroaki Nagai/Naoya Gamou/Rikuto Kobayashi/Koki Saga) and the red #777 D’station Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 (Satoshi Hoshino/Yuta Kamimura/Tomonobu Fujii).
Ten GT4 cars from the ST-Z class are entered – three each from Nissan and Toyota, two Mercedes-AMGs, one Audi and one Porsche. Nissan took a signature win last time out at the Fuji 24 Hours, which has put the #25 Team ZeroOne Z NISMO GT4 (Yuki Tanaka/Tsugio Matsuda/Teppei Natori/Kimiya Sato) up to third in the standings, just half a point behind SHADE Racing – which recently recruited legendary driver Hironori Takeuchi to be its new ‘A’ driver at Fuji, and will see him return for Sugo.
Right now, the #52 Saitama Green Brave Toyota GR Supra GT4 EVO2 (Manabu Yamazaki/Hiroki Yoshida/Naoki Hattori/Seita Nonaka) has a comfortable 24.5-point lead with only as much as 22 points available in either of this weekend’s races, including the bonuses for pole position.
Further down the grid, Progress Racing will have another run with the Evangelion-inspired EVA Racing livery that made its debut at the Fuji 24 Hours – and legendary two-time D1GP Champion, Daigo Saito, who made his professional circuit racing debut in Motegi, will make his second Super Taikyu start in the #111 Mercedes-AMG GT4.
The ST-TCR grid is boosted by the returns of the two M&K Racing Honda Civic FL5 TCRs, and the Audi Team Show Apex RS 3. Birth Racing Project’s first-generation #19 Cupra TCR (Takashi Kochiya/Takeshi Suehiro/Jiei Okuzumi/Takahisa Ohno) won last time out at Fuji.
Meanwhile, ST-Q only features one entry, the #61 Team SDA Engineering Subaru HiPerfX Future Concept, which will run in Sunday’s race.
Saturday’s race will feature 23 production vehicles – seven from the ST-2 class, and eight each from the two divisions of ST-5.
As things stand in ST-2, the #72 Nihon Automobile College Honda Civic Type R (Makoto Kanai/Tetsuya Yamano/Toshiya Nojima/Ippei Yamazaki) leads the standings after winning its class at Fuji.
Winning its class only strengthened the grip that the #88 Murakami Motors Mazda Roadster (Hiroyuki Murakami/Tatsuya Ohta/Sena Kuronuma/Soichiro Yoshida) has in the ST-5F standings. But on the other side of ST-5, AndLegal Racing’s upset victory has put the #821 Honda Fit3 RS (Katsuhiro Sato/Kenta Kawafuku/Hiroshi Ueda) up to second in the table, closing in on the #67 Team Yamato Fit (Ryohei Yasui/Shinya Uchiyama/Ryo Mukumoto).
Star power will be around in the Saturday race – mainly in the form of Honda works driver Syun Koide (#95 Team Spoon Civic), Toyota counterpart Hibiki Taira (#225 KTMS GR Yaris), as well as top Kyojo Cup drivers such as Riona Tomishita (KTMS) and Hana Burton (#110 Access Racing Team Vitz).
PROVISIONAL ENTRY LIST >>> (with thanks to Jesse Young)
Both races will air live with Japanese commentary on the official Super Taikyu YouTube channel.
Images © STMO
