Taisan Ferrari Withdraws, 27 Entries Set for Fuji

Photo: John Dagys

Team Taisan will not take part in next month’s Six Hours of Fuji as originally planned, as the one-off Japanese entry has been withdrawn from the upcoming round of the FIA World Endurance Championship.

Shinji Nakano, Akira Lida and Hiroshi Koizumi were due to pilot the No. 70 Ferrari F458 Italia, which appeared on the initial entry list released earlier this month. No reason has been given for the withdrawal.

ENTRY LIST: Six Hours of Fuji

It has resulted in a seven-car GTE-Am grid. Twenty seven cars in total are now set to take part in the race, scheduled for Oct. 10-12.

Of note, Kazuki Nakajima returns to the wheel of the No. 7 Toyota TS040 Hybrid for his home race, while Alexandre Imperatori is back in the No. 47 KCMG Oreca 03 Nissan, which is coming off its first LMP2 class victory of the season at Circuit of The Americas.

OAK Racing will enter a Morgan-Judd for Keiko Ihara, Gustavo Yacaman and Alex Brundle, bringing the LMP2 entry up to five cars.

Nick Tandy has been added to the No. 91 Porsche Team Manthey Porsche 911 RSR lineup, should Richard Lietz not be ready to return to driving after suffering a fractured arm last month.

Additionally, there’s been a change in the lineup of the No. 61 AF Corse Ferrari F458 Italia, with Jeroen Bleekemolen and Bret Curtis taking the seats of Luis-Perez Companc, Marco Cioci and Mirko Venturi, who contested the opening four rounds.

Nicki Thiim, meanwhile, returns to the No. 95 Aston Martin Vantage V8 after Richie Stanaway filled in for the Dane at COTA, while Jeff Segal has been confirmed in the No. 90 8Star Motorsports Ferrari for the second consecutive race.

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John