The #12 TRS Impul Nissan Z NISMO GT500 of Kazuki Hiramine and Bertrand Baguette took a commanding victory in the first leg of the Autobacs SUPER GT Series’ double-header finale weekend at Mobility Resort Motegi.
Hiramine and Baguette won Saturday’s Motegi GT 250km Race after starting sixth on the grid, as polesitter Igor Fraga in the #64 Modulo Honda HRC Prelude-GT led the opening stint. An early Safety Car for a multi-car GT300 incident prevented Baguette from moving up further than fifth place in the opening laps.
But Team Impul’s famous ‘sonic’ blue Nissan began to surge towards the front when Hiramine took the wheel for the second stint. He fought his way from fifth to within striking distance of the leading #64 Modulo Prelude-GT, now in the hands of Riki Okusa, and then at turn one, Hiramine overtook the Dunlop-clad Honda for the lead with 15 laps to go, never to be challenged thereafter.
As intense battles broke out behind it, the #12 TRS Impul Z cruised to victory by over 24 seconds. This was Team Impul’s first win since August 2022 at Suzuka, the same year that Hiramine and Baguette went on to win the GT500 championship. For Hiramine, it was his third career win, for Baguette, the senior driver of the Nissan fleet, it was his sixth.
Most importantly for the many relieved faces within the Nissan camp: The victory helped prevent the threat of the manufacturer’s first winless GT500 campaign since 2002.
“It feels amazing — just the best possible!” Hiramine exclaimed. “We have had a string of tough races lately, and since this was the final event of the year, I really wanted to showcase the kind of sharp, incisive driving that defines the Impul team. I’ve been putting myself through some gruelling training, and seeing it finally pay off has really driven home to me the importance of hard work. I’m truly grateful to all our sponsors and everyone on the team.”
“The early stages of the race were quite tough,” admitted Baguette. “At the previous round at Autopolis, we didn’t win – partly due to the misfortune of getting held up by other cars during the qualifying – but this time, Nissan and Bridgestone provided us with a great car and excellent tires, which I believe is what led us to this victory.”
After it had seemingly prevailed after a series of hard-fought battles for second place, the #14 ENEOS X Prime Toyota GR Supra of Nirei Fukuzumi and Kazuya Oshima was disqualified for excessive skid block wear, stripping Fukuzumi and Oshima of what would have been their first podium since the Golden Week race at Fuji.
Because of that, the #64 Modulo Prelude-GT of Okusa and Fraga was promoted up to second position. At one point late in the race, Okusa slipped out of the top three, but he was able to recover up to third place with four laps left, and drove the Modulo Nakajima Racing team to its first podium of 2026 – by far the best result for the team in 2026.
The #8 ARTA Mugen Prelude-GT (Kakunoshin Ohta/Hiroki Otsu) finished third in the revised classification, ahead of the #39 Denso Kobelco SARD GR Supra (Yuhi Sekiguchi/Sacha Fenestraz) in fourth. Both cars took major risks with their tyre strategy: The #8 pitted late and changed only the left-front tyre, while the #39 took fuel only and no tyres. It paid off for both cars, which started 13th and 10th respectively.
Fenestraz beat the #100 Stanley Prelude-GT of Tadasuke Makino over the line by less than two-tenths of a second despite Makino’s best efforts to get past and stay ahead of the Toyota. But that fifth place for Makino and Naoki Yamamoto was enough for the Stanley Team Kunimitsu drivers to take the championship lead for the first time this season, overtaking the #36 au TOM’S GR Supra of Sho Tsuboi and Kenta Yamashita, which finished in 10th (moving up a position thanks to the #14’s penalty).
The #17 Astemo Prelude-GT (Koudai Tsukakoshi/Yuto Nomura) kept its title hopes alive by finishing in sixth, a recovery from 14th and last on the grid which included a great double overtake from Tsukakoshi.
Heading into Sunday, six GT500 teams are still mathematically eligible for the title. Yamamoto and Makino now lead the GT500 standings by two points over defending champions Tsuboi and Yamashita, with Tsukakoshi/Nomura (-14) in third. Hiramine and Baguette jumped from 12th to fourth in the standings (-18) with their victory.
In fifth and sixth are the pairings of Ohta/Otsu (-19) and Sekiguchi/Fenestraz (-20), but both are at risk of being eliminated from contention depending on the results of Sunday qualifying if the #100 Stanley Prelude-GT takes the pole.
Somehow, the most incredible story out of GT300 from the last race at Autopolis has gotten even better.
After ending seven-year winless droughts last time out, Morio Nitta, Shinichi Takagi, and the #96 K-tunes Lexus RC F GT3 managed to power through for its second consecutive victory in the class and put the ageless “Golden Duo” in contention for a once-unthinkable championship run.
In his 250th and penultimate JGTC/SUPER GT race before retirement, Nitta was one of the first GT300 front-runners to pit for routine service. K-tunes Racing and several other GT300 contenders elected to take no tyres on their pit stop, and it helped co-driver Takagi emerge in net second place.
Takagi would then fight with the #666 seven x seven Porsche 911 GT3 R of Sven Müller for the net lead. By the time all GT300 cars made their pit stops, including the #26 Anest Iwata Gainer Nissan Fairlady Z, Takagi had already overtaken Müller and would hold the lead thereafter.
After 50 laps, Takagi took the chequered flag by 11.698 seconds. Nitta, 59, further extended his personal record with his 24th career GT300 victory, and Takagi, 56, matched him with his 23rd career win.
And with the #56 Realize/Nissan Mechanic Challenge GT-R GT3 of João Paulo de Oliveira/Iori Kimura finishing 14th after two in-race penalties (a drive-through penalty for pit lane speeding plus a five-second time penalty for avoidable contact), back-to-back wins for Nitta and Takagi have put them within nine points of Oliveira and Kimura. In his final race tomorrow, Nitta remarkably has the chance to go for a record-breaking fourth GT300 championship.
Asked about his surge to second in the points, Nitta said, “I had said that I would retire from SUPER GT racing after this year… well, what should I do now? Maybe I shouldn’t retire after all, but I might have to rethink that now!
“The tyres were fantastic, and thanks to the team preparing the car perfectly, I was able to maintain a strong pace from the very start. We also got a bit lucky, as our rivals ran into some trouble. In the second half, Shinichi did his job perfectly, as he always does. I didn’t expect to win again, so this is just incredible!”
Takagi added, “After taking the lead in the second half, I kept checking in over the team radio to monitor the pace of the cars behind me, and all the while I was managing my tyres to avoid excessive wear. But, you know, when you win back-to-back, it’s hard to shed any tears – especially because in the next race, our only option is to become the champions. Maybe then I can get Nitta-san to take back that whole “thing” he said about retiring!”
After going without a top-20 finish in the first five rounds, the #26 Anest Iwata Z of Hironobu Yasuda and new hire Yusuke Mitsui was set to follow up its ninth-place finish at Autopolis with a second-place run at Motegi. Post-race technical inspection broke the hearts of the Anest Iwata Racing team, however: The car was disqualified for exceeding its maximum allowed boost pressure.
Ironically, that put the two cars that were disqualified from Autopolis up onto the podium: Müller and Taichi Watarai in the #666 seven x seven Porsche took the flag and got to keep their second-place trophies this time, as did the #88 Venteny Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2 (Takashi Kogure/Daniil Kvyat), which was promoted to its first podium of the season in third.
The #45 PONOS Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo (Takuro Shinohara/Shintaro Kawabata) placed fourth, ahead of the #20 SHADE Racing RC F GT3 (Katsuyuki Hiranaka/Eijiro Shimizu) in a season-best fifth, breaking a nearly two-year pointless drought for the team. The pole-sitting #11 Gainer Tanax Z (Ryuichiro Tomita/Kazuki Oki) finished sixth, recovering from an early drive-through penalty for a Safety Car restart procedure violation that took Oki out of a comfortable lead.
Müller’s runner-up finish puts him third in the GT300 standings (-13), while the #2 Hyper Water INGING Toyota GR86 (Yuui Tsutsumi/Kazuhisa Urabe, -18) and #65 LEON Pyramid Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO (Naoya Gamou/Togo Suganami, -19) took home only minor points in 12th and 13th.
The GT300 race began with a multi-car incident on the opening lap, which began when the #31 apr Lexus LC500h of Miki Koyama got a woeful start coming to the line. The field bunched up behind her, and substitute driver Tsubasa Kondo in the #777 D’station Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo went for a desperate lunge into turn three. Kondo spun Koyama out, and was then hit in the side by the #7 CarGuy Ferrari 296 GT3 of Kiyoshi Umegaki.
All three cars were too damaged to continue, and another incident further down the field also took the #30 apr Toyota GR86 of Manabu Orido out of his penultimate race. CarGuy MKS Racing’s Umegaki (-22) is still in championship contention, but only just, while D’station’s Charlie Fagg was eliminated from title contention.
In its much-anticipated global motorsports debut, the #32 ENEOS X Prime GR GT3 Concept of Hiroaki Ishiura and Tokiya Suzuki, entered by Team ENEOS ROOKIE, finished 19th, scoring just one lap off the leader. The team focused on gathering data during these two races with the pre-homologation GR GT3.
Finally, the #22 R’Qs AMG GT3 (Masaki Kano/Masaki Jyonai) finished 21st, as Jyonai took the chequered flag in his final SUPER GT race, bowing out after a 29-year career that has spanned from 1997 to Saturday’s race.
The finale to the 2026 SUPER GT season starts Sunday at 2:00 p.m. JST / 12:00 a.m. ET / Saturday 9:00 p.m. PT.
Images © GTA
