On the final day of the Tokyo Auto Salon 2026, ROOKIE Racing announced the addition of a GT300 programme in the upcoming Autobacs SUPER GT Series using a Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO.
2007 GT300 Champion Hiroaki Ishiura, who had recently retired from driving for Toyota in GT500 after 18 seasons, returns to the category in which he’d previously won the ’07 title alongside Kazuya Oshima at apr. Ishiura went on to take seven wins, 24 podiums, and finished top three in the GT500 standings twice – including his final season in 2025.
He will share driving duties with GT300 rookie and Toyota Gazoo Racing Driver Challenge (TGR-DC) prospect Tokiya Suzuki. The 19-year-old driver from Saitama steps up to SUPER GT after winning the 2025 FIA F4 Japanese Championship, finishing second in the Formula Regional Japanese Championship (to fellow TGR-DC driver Kiyoshi Umegaki), and also competed in last year’s Super Taikyu Series in KTMS’ ST-2 class Toyota GR Yaris.
Ishiura and Suzuki will drive the same car that ROOKIE Racing used during the 2023–2024 Super Taikyu seasons. The ROOKIE Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO won the ST-X (GT3) class championship and won the Fuji Super TEC 24 Hours in both seasons.
Japanese petrol company Eneos will extend its title sponsorship of ROOKIE Racing to its GT300 programme (provisionally entered as Eneos Team ROOKIE), though a tyre supplier, car number, and other details about the team structure have not been announced as of today.
Addressing the elephant in the room, however, there was an exchange during Sunday’s introductory talk show at the Ogura Clutch booth, between Ishiura and ROOKIE Racing team owner Akio ‘Morizo’ Toyoda, the Chairman of the Board at Toyota Motor Corporation.
“After all that talk about the GR GT at the Auto Salon, it’s an AMG after all,” Ishiura said. To which Toyoda replied, “ROOKIE Racing is a privateer team, so that part is rather tricky. There are various factors involved. Please keep your expectations high and let your imagination run wild.”
And, according to Japanese publication auto sport, a brief exchange between Toyoda and show host Kyonosuke Morita followed, in which Toyoda said, “We’ll start with (the AMG) initially.”
That dialogue suggests that even though there were no formal announcements for Toyota’s new GR GT3 to go racing before its planned launch in 2027, we may not have to wait that long for the GR GT3 to make its major sports car racing debut in SUPER GT!
This would follow the lead of the GR GT3’s predecessor, the Lexus RC F GT3, which spent two full seasons racing in GT300 as a prototype vehicle before its homologation and customer racing programmes began in 2017.
Ishiura drove in the GR GT3’s first public demo run outside the Makuhari Messe exhibition hall on Saturday – fitting, as he is one of the professional drivers involved in its testing and development.
Images © STMO, GTA, Toyota
