While a lot of attention in the sports car world will be on the FIA GT World Cup in Macau or the IMSA winter test at Daytona, the 2025 Eneos Super Taikyu Series Empowered by Bridgestone season will conclude this Sunday at Fuji Speedway with the four-hour S-Tai Final: Big Thanksgiving race.
The entry list for Sunday’s Fuji finale features 57 cars in nine classes. Eight FIA GT3 homologated cars are entered – seven in the headlining ST-X class, and one special entry in the new ST-USA class introduced as part of the Super Taikyu Mirai Organisation’s (STMO) push towards attracting American interest in the series.
The seven-car ST-X field is the largest of the season, and features a three-way fight for the 2025 season championship. Leading the way is the #23 TKRI Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO (Daisuke Matsunaga/Tatsuya Kataoka/Shunji Okumoto/Yuhki Nakayama), the car that won this year’s Fuji Super TEC 24 Hours, but struggled mightily in the last round at Okayama – all while the #666 seven x seven Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R (Hiroyuki ‘Bankcy’ Ogawa/Kiyoto Fujinami/Taichi Watarai) took its third win of the season in only four appearances.
Even after missing the mid-July rounds, the #666 Porsche only trails the #23 Mercedes-AMG by five points, less than the gap between finishing first (30 points) and second (22.5) in class.
Behind them is the #31 apr Lexus RC F GT3 (Hiroaki Nagai/Naoya Gamou/Rikuto Kobayashi/Koki Saga), sitting third in the championship and trailing by just eight points. But they’ll need a little extra help to compete for this year’s title at Fuji – because only the six highest-scoring rounds are counted at the end of the season. As such, if the #31 Lexus wins, they’ll need the #23 and #666 to finish outside the top five.
Expected to round out the field in ST-X are the #33 Craft-Bamboo Racing Mercedes-AMG, the #81 GTNET MotorSports Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3, the #101 Hitotsuyama Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 EVO II, and the #777 D’station Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo. Craft-Bamboo Racing has announced that Kakunoshin Ohta will drive at Fuji, along with DTM newcomer Tom Kalender.
The outlier GT3 entry is Bingo Racing’s #9 Callaway Corvette C7 GT3-R, coming back for at least one more race in the ST-USA class. Shinji Takei, Ukyo Sasahara, and Sena Sakaguchi (just announced today!) will share driving duties in the #9 Corvette.
Also in the ST-USA class is TechSport Racing’s #249 Ford Mustang Dark Horse R, driven by Mustang Challenge North America runner-up Devin Anderson, second-generation driver Giuliano Alesi, and three-time Le Mans 24 Hours winner Kazuki Nakajima.
They’ll feature in an event that will also have a special NASCAR show run, to be held before the race on Sunday at 11:00 AM JST / 10:00 PM ET (in Charlotte). Seven-time NASCAR Cup Series Champion Jimmie Johnson and the 2023 Le Mans Garage 56 Chevrolet Camaro will headline the show run, along with appearances from Kamui Kobayashi, John Hunter Nemechek, Toshiki Oyu, Kazuto Kotaka, and Takuma Koga.
That show run will also be live streamed on the official Super Taikyu YouTube channel (S-Tai TV), whose broadcast goes live at 10:45 AM JST / 9:45 PM ET.
In the main event, 11 cars will compete for ST-Z (GT4) class honours. Saitama Green Brave has already clinched the title with its #52 Toyota GR Supra GT4 EVO2 (Kota Matsui/Hiroki Yoshida/Naoki Hattori/Seita Nonaka). But after winning three straight ST-Z titles, they want to close out the season with their fourth win of the year.
Behind them, the battle for second in the championship is extremely close, between the #885 SHADE Racing Toyota (Hironori Takeuchi/Katsuyuki Hiranaka/Yuji Kunimoto), and the #26 Team ZeroOne Nissan Z NISMO GT4 (Ryuichiro Otsuka/Ryuichiro Tomita/Takuro Shinohara/Seiji Ara). The #26 Nissan took Team ZeroOne’s second win at Okayama, in a 1-2 finish for Nissan, while Green Brave’s third-place run was enough to clinch the championship.
Six cars are entered in ST-TCR; three are still mathematically eligible to win the championship, but the #98 Waimarama Racing Hyundai Elantra N TCR (Shigeru ‘Kizuna’ Sato/Katsumasa Chiyo/Lee Jung Woo/Ryusuke Masumoto) has a commanding 22-point lead in the standings, and would only need to finish the race to clinch the championship.
Should something happen to the #98 Hyundai, the #97 M&K Racing Honda Civic Type R TCR (Mitsuhiro Endo/Shinji Nakano/Jack Young/Kento Omiya) and the #19 Birth Racing Project Cupra TCR (Takashi Kochiya/Takeshi Suehiro/Jiei Okuzumi/Takahisa Ohno) have an opportunity to steal the championship, but only if either car wins its class.
Eight ST-Q developmental vehicles will race together for the first time all season, fielded by five different manufacturers. Mazda Spirit Racing has entered both the #12 Roadster Future Concept and the biodiesel-fuelled #55 Mazda3 Future Concept. Team SDA Engineering brings its WRX-based #61 Subaru HiPerfX Future Concept, Team HRC has brought the TCR-based #271 Honda Civic Type R HRC Concept, and NISMO will enter the GT4-based #230 Nissan Z NISMO Racing Concept.
Then there’s Toyota, represented by Toyota Gazoo ROOKIE Racing and GR Team SPIRIT. The latter brings its #104 GR Yaris DAT Racing Concept, while TG-RR is set to enter both the #28 GR86 Future FR Concept, and the #32 car, likely to be the liquid hydrogen-fuelled GR Corolla H2 Concept. This comes after a successful one-off debut for the #32 TGRR GR Yaris M Concept, a mid-engined test vehicle, which finished third overall in the Okayama Group 2 race.
Rounding out the field are two ST-1 cars, eight ST-2 cars (2400–3500cc, front and all-wheel drive), four ST-3 cars (2400–3500cc, rear-wheel drive), and nine ST-4 cars (1500–2500cc).
The ST-4 title is all but sealed for SHADE Racing, as all their #884 Toyota GR86 (Masahiko Kageyama/Eijiro Shimizu/Shinnosuke Yamada) needs to do is finish the race. Same goes for the ST-1 leading #47 D’station Racing Porsche 992 Cup (Tatsuya Hoshino/Kenji Hama/Tetsuya Tanaka/Taiga Kabaki), which won last time at Okayama.
On the other hand, there’s still some intrigue in the ST-2 title fight, currently led by the #72 Nihon Automobile College Honda Civic Type R (Makoto Kanai/Tetsuya Yamano/Toshiya Nojima) over the Okayama-winning #225 KTMS Toyota GR Yaris (-11.5 points).
And in ST-3, the 11-point advantage is with the leading #39 Tracy Sports with Delta Lexus RC 350 (Shinya Fujita/Takumi Sanada/Takashi Ito) over the #15 Okabe Jidosha Motorsport Nissan Fairlady Z34 (Shuji Maejima/Masaaki Nagashima/Tsubasa Mekaru/Seiya Motojima). Just like ST-2, the second-place car in the ST-3 standings won at Okayama.
PROVISIONAL ENTRY LIST (thanks to Jesse Young) >>>
In addition to all of the above, the inaugural S-Tai Challenge event, a one-hour sprint for 42 entry-level JDM cars (Mazda Roadsters, Toyota Vitz/Yaris, and Honda N-ONEs), will be held early Sunday morning at 8:25 AM JST. That race will also be streamed live on S-Tai TV.
Images © STMO, Gruppe C Photography / SRO
