Toyota Gazoo Racing factory driver Hiroaki Ishiura has announced his retirement from the Autobacs SUPER GT Series’ premier GT500 class after the 2025 season, following 18 seasons in the top category of Japanese sports car racing beginning in 2008.
Ishiura, 44, has spent those 18 seasons driving for four different teams – Tsuchiya Engineering, Kraft, SARD, and Cerumo. He has seven career GT500 victories and a best championship finish of third in 2012. This year, Ishiura and his TGR Team KeePer Cerumo co-driver Toshiki Oyu sit third in the GT500 standings, coming off a win at the Fuji GT 3 Hours Race. It was Ishiura’s fifth win at SUPER GT’s annual Golden Week race in Fuji, and his first GT500 race win in six years.
His other two GT500 victories came at the Suzuka 1000km, in 2009 and in 2016, when the 1000km was the crown jewel event of the SUPER GT Series.
Overlapping his 18-year GT500 career, Ishiura also spent 11 seasons in the Super Formula Championship from 2008–2011 and again from 2014–2020. He won the series title in 2015 and again in 2017, making Ishiura one of only nine drivers to win multiple Japanese Top Formula Championships. Ishiura is a three-time class winner of the Nürburgring 24 Hours (2012, 2014, 2015), driving for the Toyota Gazoo Racing team.
And for a brief period, it looked as if Ishiura would also be part of Toyota’s FIA World Endurance Championship efforts. He participated in long-distance tests as the Toyota TS030 HYBRID prepared for its debut at the 2012 24 Hours of Le Mans.
However, Ishiura would be ruled out of Le Mans due to a back problem that flared up during testing. And though it was initially planned that he’d delay his WEC debut until 2013, he ultimately never raced in the series for Toyota.
Still, those successes and near-misses are a remarkable achievement for a driver who was initially passed up by Toyota very early in his career. He auditioned for a Formula Toyota Racing School scholarship in 2002, but was rejected due to his advanced age relative to his peers, which included Kazuki Nakajima and Kazuya Oshima. Coming from a middle-class family, his career in Formula Toyota as a privateer nearly ended due to a lack of funding.
His first lifeline came when star driver Naoki Hattori recruited him to be a part of his new young driver development project, called Team Naoki, for the 2005 season. That year, he finished third in the Formula Toyota standings and won the short-lived GC-21 Series title.
But it looked as if Ishiura’s career was definitively over in 2006, when he didn’t have the funds to step up to All-Japan Formula 3 – even though he’d turned up in a second-hand car and posted remarkably quick times at the pre-season test in Okayama.
This show of talent caught the attention of team owner and accomplished driver Naohiro Fujita, who not only signed Ishiura to a race seat for 2006 but also convinced Toyota Young Driver Program (TDP) Principal Masanori Sekiya to make Ishiura a member of the academy, two weeks before the start of the season – and four weeks after he was first rejected.
Ishiura leveraged his newfound status with the manufacturer’s training system into successful F3 seasons with NOW Motor Sports and TOM’S, and in 2007, he and Oshima won the SUPER GT GT300 Championship driving the apr Toyota MR-S.
“This decision was not an easy one, but I felt it was time for me to bring this chapter to a close, and before this season began, I decided to retire from the GT500 class at the end of this season,” Ishiura said. “I’m truly grateful for this time, where I have experienced so many joys and frustrations, where I and have continued to learn until now.
While he will step away from the ‘top flights’ of motorsport, Ishiura stated his desire to continue racing in other championships. “My passion for motorsport remains unchanged, and from now on I want to stay involved in racing in different ways and continue driving. Perhaps we will meet again next year in another category.
“I will drive each and every remaining race in GT500 with more importance than ever before, and will give it my all. I will also fight hard to win the championship so that I can finish the last season in the best possible way.”
This announcement comes just days after his fellow Toyota colleague Oshima announced his retirement from driving in Super Formula at the end of the 2025 season – though Oshima is expected to continue racing in GT500.
Images © GTA, Toyota
