As was the case last year, a late entry has been added to the Suzuka 1000km: Team Daishin will enter its #81 Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 in the Bronze class, wearing the signature Daishin orange which has graced the grid of many sports car races in Japan for nearly 30 years.
This entry from Team Daishin, in partnership with longtime technical partner GTNET MotorSports, will be the 29th entry in this year’s Suzuka 1000km and the 13th car in the Bronze class.
Ryuichiro Oyagi, son of Team Daishin founder/General Manager Noboyuki Oyagi, will drive the #81 GT-R alongside Nissan Driver Development Programme (NDDP) graduate Kiyoto Fujinami and Nissan factory racing legend Tsugio Matsuda.
Matsuda joins Frédéric Vervisch and Shigekazu Wakisaka as one of three past overall winners of the Suzuka 1000km on this year’s grid. A native of nearby Kuwana, Mie Prefecture, Matsuda took overall/GT500 class honours in the 2008 running of the race, one of Matsuda’s record 25 career wins in SUPER GT’s top category.
Over the course of his illustrious career, Matsuda has won GT500 and two Super Formula (Formula Nippon) championships, raced twice in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and took an LMP2 class win in the 2014 FIA World Endurance Championship 6 Hours of COTA.
Although he has retired from full-time SUPER GT driving duties to become the new Team Director of NISMO in GT500, Matsuda still races in the ENEOS Super Taikyu Series, where he’s driven the Nissan Z NISMO GT4 to back-to-back victories in the series’ crown jewel, the Fuji 24 Hour Race. This is Matsuda’s 15th Suzuka 1000km appearance, and first since 2019 when he drove a KCMG Nissan GT-R to sixth place in the final hour.
Fujinami, who spent 12 years as an official Nissan development and factory racing driver, won two GT300 titles with Kondo Racing (2020, 2022) at the wheel of a Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3. He has also had considerable success with GTNET and Team Daishin, winning back-to-back Super Taikyu ST-X (GT3) championships (2018, 2019) and three overall victories in the Fuji 24 Hours (2018, 2019, 2021).
The 31-year-old still occasionally drives for Team Daishin/GTNET in the Super Taikyu, even after his time as an official Nissan works driver ended after 2023. Fujinami is a race winner in GT World Challenge Asia and its sister series, the SRO Japan Cup.
As the designated Bronze driver, Ryuichiro Oyagi brings GT3 racing experience in both Super Taikyu and SRO Japan Cup competition, where he drove alongside his father. The second-generation Oyagi has also won three consecutive Suzuka Champion Cup Vita-01 championships from 2021 to 2023.
Avid SUPER GT/JGTC fans will remember that in its heyday, Team Daishin scored two GT300 class wins at the Suzuka 1000km with its iconic Nissan Silvia S15 – in 1999 and in 2001.
Along with its class win at the Suzuka 1000km in 2001, Noboyuki Oyagi and Takayuki Aoki also went on to claim that year’s JGTC GT300 championship and the overall victory in the Super Taikyu Tokachi 24 Hours.
Images © SRO Motorsports Group, GTA, Honda Mobilityland
