O’Sullivan: CarGuy MKS Should Be Stronger in Year Two

Zak O’Sullivan believes CarGuy MKS Racing is in a stronger position to make an impact in SUPER GT in its second season owing to its improved knowledge of the Yokohama tires and the introduction of the Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo.

The British driver is entering his second year in the Japanese series, and will share the newly-upgraded No. 7 Ferrari with Reimei Ito in this weekend’s Okayama 300km.

CarGuy MKS made a big impression in its first season last year as O’Sullivan and Toyota junior Rikuto Kobayashi won the fifth round at Suzuka and remained part of the GT300 title fight until the final round and finished third in the championship.

Ex-FIA Formula 2 racer O’Sullivan is convinced that a combination of factors should allow CarGuy to be more consistent this season, even if he remains uncertain as to the true competitive pecking order in the GT300 class.

“I’m sure there have been some games being played,” O’Sullivan told Sportscar365. “Until qualifying for the first round, honestly I am not sure where we will be.

“But I know a lot more what to expect now. It’s quite a peculiar championship, very unique, there’s no other championship really like it, and now I know all the quirks.

“The target is to have a cleaner year, fewer mistakes, and see where we end up.

“Every race last year we were there or thereabouts, and we have the Evo package now, which should be better. The Ferrari has always been strong, and the biggest thing is now we’ve had a season of experience with selecting the tires.

“We didn’t know last year which tire would perform well where, and there were some races, like Sugo, where we were a bit lost, but we’ve had these tests to work that out.

“Also, we have been allowed to run the car a lot lower this year, by about 10 or 20mm, which should be a positive. It’s a bit early to tell what the impact of that will be, but being able to run the car lower is always better, so fingers crossed!”

O’Sullivan put the No. 7 Ferrari fifth on the timesheets in the official Okayama test, while the team was only 13th-fastest in the following test at Fuji, quickest of the three Ferrari teams, albeit the car was being run in pre-Evo spec for both tests.

With CarGuy MKS having made its Evo switch, Velorex is now the only Ferrari outfit still on the original 296, which has a minimum weight of 1330 kg as opposed to 1325 kg for the newer car, and has a higher minimum rear wing angle by one degree.

Additionally, the Evo and pre-Evo cars have different turbo boost pressures, with the Evo model afforded more boost below 5,000 rpm but fewer in the mid-range.

“We haven’t done any laps yet with the Evo and it looks quite different; it has a different BoP as well,” said O’Sullivan. “I think it will be a bit of a learning weekend for us.

“It’s not ideal of course, but I think the GTA was keen to get everybody onto the new car, and the BoP for the original car is a bit less friendly. Fingers crossed we are still fast.”

O’Sullivan has not hidden his desire to earn a step up to the Toyota GT500 roster in future, particularly after his 2025 co-driver Kobayashi was handed a plum seat at the Cerumo team in place of Hiroaki Ishiura for the upcoming season.

The 21-year-old says he hopes to make a strong case for a 2027 promotion.

“I was already keen to move up last season, honestly,” said O’Sullivan. “At the moment there are a lot of good GT500 drivers in Toyotas and there aren’t many gaps.

“It’s definitely something I would be interested in. It’s not up to me whether I end up driving it or not, but I just have to keep doing what I’m doing.

“I’d like to hope there could be an opportunity [after this year], but we’ll see.”