Less than two weeks after the announcement that Lamborghini Squadra Corse factory driver Daniil Kvyat would join JLOC for the 2026 Autobacs SUPER GT Series, today, one of the series’ original teams announced the rest of its driver line-up for the upcoming season.
Kvyat will be placed in JLOC’s flagship entry, the #88 Venteny Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2, where he’ll share driving duties with 2024 GT300 co-champion and 2010 GT500 Champion Takashi Kogure. Kogure enters his eighth season with JLOC and delivered the team its first SUPER GT title two years ago.
Yuya Motojima, meanwhile, will be moved across the garage to the #87 Metalive S Lamborghini GT3, where he’ll be paired with veteran driver Kosuke Matsuura. Motojima won the 2024 GT300 title with Kogure during their seven years driving together, amassing a total of five wins and ten podiums during their time together.
Matsuura’s former co-driver Natsu Sakaguchi has been retained by JLOC as a reserve driver and will test the #88 car during the first official SUPER GT pre-season test at Okayama International Circuit on 6–7 March.
Joining him as a reserve driver is 2023 GT300 Champion Kohta Kawaai, who has not raced in SUPER GT since winning the title nearly two and a half years ago – after a failed attempt to move up to GT500, Kawaai has spent the two years primarily racing in the Nürburgring Langstrecken Serie (NLS) and made his Nürburgring 24 Hours debut last year. He’ll test the #87 car at Okayama.
JLOC has also announced that decorated race engineer Hitoshi Iyoki, who helped lead the #88 team of Motojima and Kogure to the championship in 2024, will return to the organisation after spending 2025 with upstart seven x seven Racing.
Iyoki will be the Chief Engineer of the #88 car, while Yasuhiro Tasaka, another experienced engineer with years of GT500 experience, will move to the #87 car – now managed by Junji Ohta.
Images © GTA, Lamborghini
