Who can stop the momentum of TGR Team au TOM’S, Sho Tsuboi, and Kenta Yamashita? That’s the question that’ll be on the minds of rival GT500 teams and supporters for nearly three months, after the reigning champions took victory in the SUPER GT Fuji 3 Hours Race.
Tsuboi and Yamashita came back from a 20-second deficit in the opening stint to win SUPER GT’s annual Golden Week holiday special on Monday, giving them back-to-back wins to open the 2026 season, and a hat trick of consecutive wins dating back to the 2025 season finale at Motegi.
In front of a crowd of 50,300 spectators (83,600 attended over the two-day race meeting), the initial forecasts of rain on race day gave way to ideal weather conditions for the first of SUPER GT’s two three-hour long-distance races in 2026.
To the delight of Toyota supporters, their two cars started on the front row: Nirei Fukuzumi in the #14 ENEOS X Prime Toyota GR Supra GT500 on pole, and Yamashita in second in the #36 au TOM’S GR Supra. Seeking a win for TGR Team ENEOS ROOKIE, Fukuzumi started to build a massive lead, preventing Yamashita from staying within range as the #36 Toyota struggled for pace in its opening stint.
Behind them, Mitsunori Takaboshi in the #23 Motul Niterra Nissan Z NISMO GT500 was hanging onto third ahead of rookie Rikuto Kobayashi in the #38 KeePer Cerumo GR Supra. The battle came to a sudden end, though, when Kobayashi made contact with Takaboshi and sent the red NISMO Z spinning around. Takaboshi would only lose one position, meanwhile, Kobayashi received a drive-through penalty for the contact and damage to the left-front fender that worsened as the race went on.
The first GT500 car to make a routine pit stop was the #8 ARTA Mugen Honda HRC Prelude-GT after 40 minutes of racing. All of the top three runners made their first pit stops right after an hour had elapsed, perfectly timed for all three cars to make driver changes. Though, Yamashita had a stumble and a fall exiting his car, thankfully he suffered no injuries as Tsuboi replaced him in the #36 au GR Supra.
Another car that was on the move in the opening stint was the black and green #37 Deloitte TOM’S GR Supra. After a miserable outing in Okayama, Giuliano Alesi drove from 13th on the grid to 7th in a little over 30 minutes. But shortly after the pit stop and driver change, Ukyo Sasahara had to pull over at the exit of Panasonic Automotive Corner (turn 16) with an electrical issue, one which proved terminal. The Full Course Yellow was deployed for the first and only time in the race.
After the race resumed, Kazuya Oshima led in the #14 ENEOS GR Supra, but even with 40 kilogrammes of Success Weight in the car, Tsuboi was able to trim away at his lead: Down from 21 seconds before the pit stops, to 15 seconds, to within ten seconds. Katsumasa Chiyo, now in the #23 Motul Z, had a good battle with Nissan stablemate Teppei Natori in the #24 Realize Corporation Z for third.
Just past the one-hour mark, Tsuboi brought the #36 au GR Supra down pit road for the second and final time on lap 76. He stayed in the car for a double stint to the finish.
Two laps later, Oshima pitted the #14 ENEOS GR Supra from the lead, and ROOKIE Racing swapped drivers on its second stop to put Fukuzumi back in the car.
The time difference between the two teams’ pit stops wasn’t much – only about three seconds. But Tsuboi’s out-laps were quick, and Fukuzumi was only a few hundred meters ahead of Tsuboi as he left pit lane into GR Corner (turn one). On cold tyres, Fukuzumi stood no chance to defend his position for long, and with 56 minutes to go, Tsuboi drove through to the lead at Coca-Cola Corner (turn three).
That was the only opening that Tsuboi needed – Fukuzumi did his best to stay within range for a bit, but after three hours and 115 laps of racing, the #36 au TOM’S GR Supra won the race by 8.786 seconds, leading a Toyota 1-2 finish ahead of the #14 ENEOS GR Supra of Fukuzumi and Oshima.
It’s the first time since 2016 that a GT500 team opened the season with consecutive race wins. NISMO’s Tsugio Matsuda and Ronnie Quintarelli also won at Okayama and the Fuji Golden Week race in defence of their 2014 & 2015 championships.
Both drivers of the #36 car continued to climb into rarified air among the series’ legends. For Tsuboi, this is his 12th career GT500 race win, which now ties him for fifth on the all-time leaderboard with Ralph Firman, Benoît Tréluyer, and the Team Director of the #36 TOM’S squad, Daisuke Ito.
“After Yamashita-san ran strongly to get us in secondnd position in the qualifying sessions, I thought we would be able to compete well in the race,” Tsuboi said after the race. “However, in the race, car #14 was also strong, which made it a tough race, but I am glad that we were able to realize our goal of getting a second consecutive win. In the latter stages our rivals were the other GR Supra cars, so we had a good idea of what their tiers and other factors were, and I thought we would be stronger in the second half of the race, so I was able to push on with confidence.”
Yamashita, meanwhile, captured his 11th win, tying him with three-time GT500 champion and Toyota legend Juichi Wakisaka.
“In the first half, there were some difficulties that kept us from running at our usual pace,” he admitted. “In the end, it was good the way Tsuboi-san performed. But since there was a gap to make up, it was good for me to see how he and the team did. When I am asked why we are so strong, it is thanks to Tsuboi-san and the team. I, not so much… just normal!”
Chiyo and Takaboshi brought the #23 Motul Z home to a podium finish. They were all that stood in the way of a potential Toyota podium sweep at the Toyota-owned circuit, as he came under heavy fire from the #39 Denso Kobelco SARD GR Supra (Yuhi Sekiguchi/Sacha Fenestraz) late in the race. But ultimately, Chiyo would have enough to hang on and finish one second ahead of Fenestraz, who brought the #39 Denso GR Supra home in fourth.
For the second straight race, the #16 ARTA Mugen HRC Prelude-GT of Tomoki Nojiri and Ren Sato was the highest-finishing Honda in the race, taking fifth, less than half a second ahead of the #24 Realize Z (Teppei Natori/Atsushi Miyake) in sixth. Sato and Miyake had a great battle in the last hour, which began as they tried to drive by the wounded #38 KeePer GR Supra of Toshiki Oyu who was struggling to hold onto fifth place.
Miyake eventually got past Oyu, Sato passed both of them with an opportunistic move into GR Corner, and defending Fuji 3H winner Oyu’s race would end 45 minutes short of the goal when the damage to the floor was deemed too great to continue.
The #12 TRS Impul Z (Kazuki Hiramine/Bertrand Baguette) came home seventh, followed by the #100 Stanley HRC Prelude-GT (Naoki Yamamoto/Tadasuke Makino), the #17 Astemo HRC Prelude-GT (Koudai Tsukakoshi/Yuto Nomura), and the #19 WedsSport Bandoh GR Supra (Yuji Kunimoto/Sena Sakaguchi) – the only car that kept Bridgestone-clad teams from locking out the top ten again.
Heading into the longer-than-it-should-be summer break, Tsuboi/Yamashita now lead the standings on 40 points, 16 ahead of Fukuzumi/Oshima in second, while Oyu/Kobayashi fall to 24 points adrift in third.
Despite finishing second in last year’s GT300 Championship, Kondo Racing’s #56 Realize/Nissan Mechanic Challenge GT-R NISMO GT3 hadn’t won a SUPER GT race since the Fuji Golden Week special in 2023. That changed when João Paulo de Oliveira and Iori Kimura finally brought the blue and white Nissan GT-R back to the top step of the podium with what turned out to be a comprehensive win.
That didn’t look like it’d be in the cards at the start of the race. The pole-sitting #61 Subaru BRZ R&D Sport started up front and Hideki Yamauchi had all intentions of breaking away from the pack. He did so at first, but after 20 minutes, Miki Koyama in the #31 apr Lexus LC500h had gotten to within striking distance of the leader.
Seita Nonaka ran third in the #52 Saitama Green Brave Toyota GR Supra, and Oliveira worked his way up to fourth from sixth on the grid. Soon after, Oliveira took third place from Nonaka.
Behind them, an incident between the #666 seven x seven Porsche 911 GT3 R of Sven Müller and the #60 Syntium LM corsa Lexus LC500 would prove consequential later on as Müller picked up a ten-second time penalty for avoidable contact with Kohno’s car.
But at the 40-minute mark, disaster once again struck Subaru at Fuji when the #61 Subaru suffered a left-front puncture. They weren’t the only cars that had tyre trouble – right after, the #5 Mach Syaken/Air Buster MC86 blew a left-front tyre, and the #88 Venteny Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2 had two punctures. With the Subaru’s puncture, Koyama took the lead, and Oliveira closed in from second place.
55 minutes in, Oliveira overtook Koyama for the lead as she brought the #31 LC500h down pit road for the first pit stop and driver change. Around 15 minutes later, the #56 Realize GT-R made its first stop and Kimura got in for the middle stint.
The FCY for the stranded Deloitte TOM’S GR Supra would be a disaster for Saitama Green Brave and the #52 GR Supra which hadn’t pitted at the time of the intervention. Nonaka and the team committed to come in, but that was seconds after the FCY was deployed. Not only would their full-service pit stop not count, but for making a full pit stop after the FCY was deployed, the #52 Green Brave GR Supra picked up a 60-second stop-and-hold penalty, taking another car out of contention for victory.
Kimura maintained the #56 Realize GT-R’s lead throughout the second stint, and with 46 minutes left, Oliveira got back in to pull away from the pack and close out the victory, completing 107 laps.
An emotional Oliveira said after the race, “Since every year there are new cars entering in GT300, it is very competitive and winning is difficult, hard to win I believe. As for why it has taken us so long to get this win, I think we won because we have never given up. I am grateful for the presence of our Manager Kondo and Kimura-san, and for my wife came here today to support as well.” It was his sixth win in GT300.
“I am glad that I was able to show my gratitude for Manager Kondo having brought me to the team this year,” added Kimura, who captured his third career win (all with different teams), and second in the last three races. “As for the opening round – when I get nervous, I am the type that ties up…so this time I really tried to keep calm and be ready for my turn at the wheel and making sure to hand the car over properly to the next. I want to thank everyone.”
In the battle for second, Kiyoto Fujinami brought the #666 seven x seven Porsche to the chequered flag just a second ahead of Naoya Gamou in the #65 LEON Pyramid Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO, and 7.1 seconds ahead of Kazuto Kotaka in the #31 apr LC500h. That wasn’t enough to offset the ten-second time penalty after the race, dropping Müller and Fujinami off the podium to fourth.
Gamou and Togo Suganami (Haruki Kurosawa did not run, as expected) would therefore finish second in the #65 LEON Pyramid AMG, and the trio of Kotaka, Koyama, and Wurz finished third in the #31 apr LC500h. Koyama became the first woman to record a second GT300 podium finish, both in consecutive races – while Wurz finished on the podium in his sports car racing debut, following in father Alex’s footsteps.
The #2 Hyper Water INGING Toyota GR86 (Yuui Tsutsumi/Kazuhisa Urabe) claimed fifth place, finishing ahead of the #32 ENEOS X Prime AMG GT3 (Hiroaki Ishiura/Kamui Kobayashi) in sixth, a great outing for the team and for special guest driver Kobayashi.
Finishing in seventh, the #777 D’station Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo (Tomonobu Fujii/Charlie Fagg) was able to retain its lead in the GT300 standings. The #4 Goodsmile Hatsune Miku AMG (Nobuteru Taniguchi/Tatsuya Kataoka) finished eighth, the #52 Green Brave GR Supra of Nonaka and Hiroki Yoshida salvaged ninth, and the #96 K-tunes Lexus RC F GT3 (Morio Nitta/Shinichi Takagi) completed the top ten.
Unfortunately, the #61 Subaru BRZ’s day would end when Takuto Iguchi pulled off course with a drive system failure 20 minutes short of the goal. The #18 UpGarage Mercedes-AMG (steering) and #45 PONOS Racing Ferrari (suspension) also spent significant time in the garage and finished well outside the points range.
The top 15 included the #7 CarGuy Ferrari 296 GT3 EVO, the #87 Open House Huracán, #62 HELM Motorsports GT-R, #11 Gainer Tanax Nissan Fairlady Z – and the #48 Kenko/K’s Frontier GT-R, which finished 15th, the first time that the #48 team has scored a points-paying finish since before NILZZ Racing took over the entry in 2019!
In the GT300 standings, the duo of Kotaka/Koyama are three points behind the D’station Racing drivers; the Tsutsumi/Urabe and Gamou/Suganami pairings are each four points behind, while Oliveira/Kimura now trail by eight points.
The next round of the 2026 Autobacs SUPER GT Series also takes place at Fuji Speedway: A 300 kilometre sprint race on Sunday, 2 August.
Finally, a note from the author…
Thank you to everyone in the United States and Canada who tuned in to watch Monday’s race on RACER Network and RACER+, thank you to Jonathan Green and Jon Massengale of Speed City Broadcasting, and everyone at Greenlight International for their trust and support, allowing me to achieve a dream of joining the broadcast team for a SUPER GT race. And thank you to everyone who tuned in, of course!
–RJ
Images © GTA
