Familiar Faces Set For SUPER GT Returns At Fuji Speedway

The GT Association (GTA) published the entry list for the upcoming Autobacs SUPER GT Series official pre-season test at Fuji Speedway, which takes place on 25-26 March.

Noteworthy on the GT500 side is that TGR Team Eneos ROOKIE driver Kenta Yamashita and Modulo Nakajima Racing driver Kakunoshin Ohta are both expected to return to the cockpit of their respective vehicles in two weeks’ time.

Both drivers suffered major accidents during private manufacturer tests this winter. Yamashita suffered a fractured vertebra after his crash at Suzuka in January, while Ohta was withheld from the Okayama test as a precaution when he crashed at Suzuka the week before.

The entry list in GT300 has all 27 cars participating, and 12 of them have registered three drivers.

A great surprise comes from R&D Sport, who’ve brought back 2005 GT300 Drivers’ Champion, Kota Sasaki, to drive their #61 Subaru BRZ R&D Sport! Sasaki drove full-time for R&D Sport from 2009 to 2014, overseeing the birth and rise of the Subaru works GT300 team to prominence.

A nine-time race winner, Sasaki still holds joint possession of the most career GT300 pole positions (13) and the outright record for most GT300 poles in a season (five, in 2013). He last drove in SUPER GT in 2020, but has been active in Super Taikyu – and most recently represented Subaru in the Nürburgring 24 Hour race last year.

Two-time GT300 championship runner-up, Hiroki Katoh, will make his first testing appearance as the third driver for muta Racing INGING in their #2 Toyota GR86. Katoh became muta Racing INGING’s Team Director this off-season, and stepped away from full-time driving in favour of a third driver role with Yuui Tsutsumi and Hibiki Taira now running the full season.

BMW Team Studie x CRS have made a planned change of drivers, replacing Bruno Spengler with two-time GT300 Drivers’ Champion, Masataka Yanagida. Yanagida, Studie’s third driver, will replace Spengler for three races this season due to the Canadian’s commitments in Italian GT.

There is also a new face making his SUPER GT testing debut, Takumi Sanada, driving the #48 Shokumou/K’s Frontier Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 for NILZZ Racing. Sanada, who turns 27 later this month, started racing GT4s in 2020. This will be his first drive in a GT3 car.

All other driver line-ups remain the same, including apr’s all-pro trio of Manabu Orido, Yuta Kamimura, and Ryo Ogawa driving their #30 Toyota GR86.

Seiya Jin (Team LeMans), Yusuke Shiotsu (Gainer #11), Shinnosuke Yamada (SHADE Racing), Masaki Kano (R’Qs Motor Sports), Yuki Nemoto (apr #31), Miki Koyama (Anest Iwata Racing with Arnage), and Takuya Otaki (Tomei Sports) will reprise their third driver roles from Okayama. Shintaro Kawabata, a late scratch in Okayama from the #9 Pacific VSPO NAC Mercedes-AMG GT3, has also been added back to the entry list for Fuji.

Images © GTA