Japan Catch-Up… D’station Racing retains Fujii, Fagg for 2025
D’station Racing has announced that Tomonobu Fujii and Charlie Fagg will return for their second season together in the #777 Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3 Evo, in what will be the team’s premier programme following its exit from the FIA World Endurance Championship.
After Fagg took over from Marco Sørensen in the second race of the season, he and Fujii scored the new Vantage GT3’s first victory in global competition last June at the Suzuka GT 3 Hour Race – as well as the first SUPER GT victory for Aston Martin since 2012 and the very first win for D’station Racing. They finished fourth in the GT300 Drivers’ Championship last season, adding another podium at Sportsland Sugo.
Baseball legend Kazuhiro Sasaki and longtime SUPER GT driver and team principal Tetsuya Tanaka will return in their respective roles as Team Director and Team Supervisor.
The Dunlop-clad #777 D’station Vantage will also sport a new livery, and a new logo to commemorate the 30th anniversary of D’station’s parent company, Nexus Group.
Goodsmile Racing reveals 2025 livery and Sepang reserve squad
The cover came off of Goodsmile Racing & TeamUKYO’s livery for the 2025 season, with illustrator Kei Mochizuki’s design of the famous virtual idol Hatsune Miku leading the finished product that was unveiled at this year’s Wonder Festival 2025 Winter event at Makuhari Messe, Chiba.
GSR’s presentation also revealed which drivers will deputise for Nobuteru Taniguchi and Tatsuya Kataoka in the 28 June race at Sepang International Raceway.
Yuhki Nakayama, the 2013 GT300 Champion with Team Mugen, returns to SUPER GT after two years away, having last raced in the series for apr in 2022. You may recall that his last race ended with a bizarre accident at Motegi that wrote off Team Mach’s original Toyota 86 Mother Chassis, and an accumulation of penalty points that has since dropped away from his record.
Shunji Okumoto, a former radio control racing champion turned full-size racing driver, will make his series debut after winning the 2024 Super Taikyu Series ST-2 Championship for KTMS. Okumoto was also an alumnus of the Toyota Gazoo Racing Driver Challenge (TGR-DC) F4 academy in 2023, driving alongside the likes of Jin Nakamura, Rikuto Kobayashi, and Yuki Sano.
Nakayama (right) and Okumoto (left) were already confirmed for full-time rides in Super Taikyu’s ST-X class for TKRI – whose cars are prepared in the same RS Fine workshop as Goodsmile Racing.
Taku Bamba, who won Goodsmile Racing’s first GT300 title in 2011 alongside Taniguchi, will return as the deputy team director for Sepang. Bamba replaces Ukyo Katayama, who will be going to the 24 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps to work with Taniguchi, Kataoka, and Kamui Kobayashi as they return to the Intercontinental GT Challenge.
Suganami reunites with Gamou and LEON Racing
Last year’s runners-up in the GT300 Championship, K2 R&D LEON Racing has announced the return of Togo Suganami to the team for the first time in four years, re-joining 2018 GT300 Champion Naoya Gamou in the #65 LEON Pyramid Mercedes-AMG GT3.
Suganami made his GT300 debut with LEON Racing in 2019, taking over from Haruki Kurosawa as he retired from full-time racing. He took his first win at Fuji Speedway in October 2020 and finished third in the standings during the COVID-impacted season.
After parting ways with LEON Racing, Suganami ran full-time in Super Formula Lights in 2022, then returned to GT300 where he spent two seasons at Hoppy Team Tsuchiya. He’ll rejoin the team in place of Takuro Shinohara, who won back-to-back races at Fuji and Sportsland Sugo last season alongside Gamou.
For Gamou, 2025 will be his 11th full season at LEON Racing. Kurosawa will return as the Team Director, but there is no word yet on whether he will reprise his role as the reserve driver – after entering five rounds last season and driving a grand total of zero racing laps.
Studie switch imminent?
There is a rumbling within the SUPER GT paddock that as Porsche returns to the series, BMW could be on its way out.
BMW M Team Studie recently shook down its M4 GT3 in EVO configuration for the first time at Fuji Speedway with veteran driver Seiji Ara at the wheel, and Studie AG Chairman Yasuaki “Bob” Suzuki posted an article on his blog to share his excitement to race the car for the first time on 13 April to start their season.
But not at the SUPER GT season opener in Okayama. Instead, Suzuki specifically mentioned GT World Challenge Asia’s opening round at Sepang on the same weekend.
Suzuki responded to a direct inquiry from Japanese publication auto sport Web by saying, “We will announce the activities of 2025 after the annual [SUPER GT] entry list is released,” and reiterated his statement in another blog post.
DSC understands that Studie was considering changing tyre manufacturers from Michelin to another supplier (believed to be Dunlop) but could not come to terms on a deal for 2025. And today, Michelin made an official announcement about its Japanese motorsport activities – with only two GT300 clients, SHADE Racing and apr, listed.
Seiji Ara, Niklas Krütten, and former BMW M works driver Bruno Spengler led Team Studie to fifth in the GT300 standings last year, with Ara and Krutten finishing a season-best third place in Okayama.
JLOC leads two-day GT300 entrants’ test
As for reigning GT300 Champions JLOC, they’re off to a hot start in pre-season testing, leading all four sessions of a GT Entrants’ Association official test at Fuji Speedway this past Thursday and Friday.
https://twitter.com/shirosui/status/1888188872846188639
Because the title-winning #88 car was at Osaka Auto Messe as an exhibition display, reigning champion Yuya Motojima joined Kosuke Matsuura in the #87 JLOC Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2 and went quickest in all four sessions, with a best lap time of 1:35.918 turned in on Friday’s final session. Motojima and Matsuura were also accompanied by former Honda factory driver Iori Kimura.
JLOC also brought in one of its EVO1-spec Huracáns as a Yokohama Tyre test mule, shared by Natsu Sakaguchi and the other half of the reigning GT300 Champions, Takashi Kogure.
Other oddities among the 18-car field included Team LeMans running a Ferrari 488 GT3 as a Yokohama test car. Yoshiaki Katayama shared the cockpit with Hironobu Yasuda, who has already announced his GT300 comeback with Anest Iwata Racing.
apr also brought back its old Toyota GR Sport Prius PHV, running on Michelin tyres, as the #30 apr Toyota GR86 GT300 prepares to make the switch. Former Toyota GT500 driver Yuichi Nakayama tested the Prius last week, but has already announced that he will not race in SUPER GT this year.
2025 AUTOBACS SUPER GT GT300 Class
#45 PONOS FERRARI 296
ミシュランからダンロップに変更。今シーズンはどんな走りが見られるだろうか#SUPERGT #SUPERGT2025 #富士スピードウェイ #PONOS #PONOSRacing #Ferrari #296GT3 #にゃんこ大戦争 @ponos_racing pic.twitter.com/MdYsS2XWlg
— うらしまはる (@haurauki_vab) February 8, 2025
And PONOS Racing ran its Ferrari 296 GT3 on Dunlop tyres for the first time, as the team’s switch from Michelin to Dunlop rubber is expected to be made official in the coming days.
Maezawa Racing returns with new Ferrari 296 GT3 for Japan Cup
Japanese billionaire and amateur racing driver Yusaku Maezawa will step up to his first full-season GT3 effort, taking his Maezawa Racing squad to the SRO Japan Cup with a brand-new Ferrari 296 GT3.
Maezawa will run the four-round season alongside his driving coach, 2022 GT World Challenge Asia Silver class Champion Naoki Yokomizo. Maezawa and Yokomizo entered a last-generation Ferrari 488 GT3 at the 2024 Japan Cup finale in Okayama, taking finishes of fourth and second place.
“I am grateful for the opportunity to take on this high-level battleground and will face this challenge with all my might,” said Yokomizo. “During the off-season, we have been practising together and the whole team has been preparing with great attention to detail in order to further develop Maezawa’s incredible potential.”
The upstart team has spared no expense in the engineering department – recruiting former Cars Tokai Dream28 and current INGING Motorsport engineer Shintaro Watanabe as the chief engineer of the #555 Ferrari, and Ryo Arai, last year’s lead engineer at ThreeBond Racing in Super Formula, to work alongside him.
New-look line-up for apr Super Taikyu Lexus
In addition to its two-car GT300 programme, apr will continue to enter its #31 Lexus RC F GT3 in the Super Taikyu Series ST-X class, but with a new-look driver crew.
Bronze driver Hiroaki Nagai and 2016 GT300 Championship runner-up Koki Saga will return from last year’s programme that won the Suzuka round – headlined by Miki Koyama being the first woman to take an overall race win in the Super Taikyu Series since 1993.
For 2025, Koyama and Kazuto Kotaka will be replaced this year by reigning back-to-back ST-X Champion Naoya Gamou, and TGR-DC prospect Rikuto Kobayashi.
Gamou comes over from the 2023 and 2024 title-winning ROOKIE Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 programme which has been disbanded over the offseason. Kobayashi was part of the title-winning KTMS crew in ST-2 and will gain even more GT3-level experience alongside his partial schedule at Saitama Green Brave and a second season in Super Formula Lights.
Max Racing is back!
And, nearly 18 months after ceasing operations, Max Racing is back and preparing for a full-time run at the SRO Japan Cup.
The team originally founded by the late Tsuyoshi “Go Max” Oono once raced in Super Taikyu, Super Formula Lights, and SUPER GT until Oono’s sudden passing in 2022 forced the team to scale back. And after its Toyota GR Supra GT300 suffered terminal damage in a vehicle fire at Fuji Speedway in August 2023, Max Racing announced it was shutting down.
But on New Years’ Day the team teased a comeback, and on 30 January the team confirmed it would enter the full Japan Cup with an orange and blue Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO. Max Racing’s drivers for the season will be announced at a later date.
Elsewhere in Japan Cup it has already been announced that seven x seven Racing will return to the series, and Hiroyuki “Bankcy” Ogawa and Kiyoto Fujinami will run the full season.
Sunrise BLVD has confirmed that Yoshimoto Makino and Daiki Fujiwara will return to drive its #82 Porsche 718 Cayman GT4, joining Toyota Gazoo Racing Indonesia’s returning duo of Haridarma Manoppo and Seita Nonaka in the GT4 class.
Images © GTA, Goodsmile Racing, D’station Racing, Studie AG, Honda Mobilityland, Maezawa Racing, Max Racing
