Real Racing Honda Ends Win Drought in Chaotic Sugo Race

Real Racing Honda duo Koudai Tsukakoshi and Yuto Nomura scored the team’s first SUPER GT win in four years after emerging on top in a chaotic Sugo contest.

After their near-miss last time out at Suzuka, the occupants of the No. 17 Honda HRC Prelude-GT made it three wins in a row for the marque’s new-for-2026 challenger in an 84-lap race that started behind the safety car and featured a further intervention.

It was Real’s first win since the 2022 Autopolis round, a seventh for veteran Tsukakoshi and a first in the top class for GT500 rookie Nomura.

Sacha Fenestraz and Yuhi Sekiguchi finished second in the SARD Toyota GR Supra, 4.729 seconds behind after a mid-race surge from Fenestraz, while Team Kunimitsu Honda duo Naoki Yamamoto and Tadasuke Makino completed the top three.

It looked at first as if the battle for the win would be between the two GT500 cars not using Bridgestone tires, as the safety car start — called after the entire field elected to start on slicks on a damp but rapidly drying track — helped polesitter Riki Okusa keep an early lead in the Nakajima Racing Honda on Dunlops.

Yuji Kunimoto emerged as Okusa’s nearest challenger early on aboard the Yokohama-shod Racing Project Bandoh Toyota, picking off a struggling Nomura for second.

But a gap of nearly 20 seconds between Okusa and Kunimoto and the rest of the field was wiped out when Tomoki Nojiri’s ARTA Honda smashed into the apr Toyota GT300 machine of Hiroaki Nagai exiting the final corner, bringing out the safety car.

The crash occurred as Nagai went off at the last corner and spun as he rejoined, with Nojiri collecting the gentleman driver and sustaining race-ending damage to the No. 16 car that won last time out at Suzuka. Both drivers escaped uninjured.

When the race restarted at the end of lap 32, a handful of cars elected to pit immediately, including Nomura’s Real Honda, while the lead pair stayed out.

The cars that pitted early gained the advantage at first, as Tsukakoshi moved into the net lead and Kazuki Hiramine, taking over the Team Impul Nissan from Bertrand Baguette leaping from sixth at the restart to a net second, while the Nakajima Honda and Bandoh Toyota struggled with tire warm-up and fell down the order.

But it was the late-stopping SARD car that Fenestraz took over from Yuhi Sekiguchi on lap 38 that made the most progress early in the second stint, as the Franco-Argentine driver began to carve his way through the field on his fresh Bridgestones.

While Tsukakoshi maintained a small lead up front, Hiramine was unable to keep up the pace and fell back behind Tadasuke Makino’s Team Kunimitsu Honda on lap 39, and was passed for a net third by Fenestraz on lap 55.

Hiramine would later slow with what proved to be terminal gearbox problems.

Fenestraz soon arrived on the tail of Makino, and after an aggressive battle between the pair the Toyota driver finally made the move at Turn 1 on lap 66.

However, Fenestraz lacked the pace thereafter to catch Tsukakoshi and had to turn his attentions to fending off Makino and the TOM’S Toyotas of Sho Tsuboi and Giuliano Alesi.

In the end, Fenestraz hung on for a repeat of SARD’s second-place finish from last year’s Sugo race, with Makino likewise keeping clear of the points-leading No. 36 TOM’S Toyota of Tsuboi and Kenta Yamashita, who now have a 13-point advantage over new nearest challengers Tsukakoshi and Nomura in the standings.

Ukyo Sasahara and Alesi completed the top five in the No. 37 Toyota, one place ahead of the recovering Bandoh Toyota of Kunimoto and Sena Sakaguchi.

Team Impul’s race-ending issue meant that the top Nissan Z NISMO was the Kondo Racing example of Teppei Natori and Atsushi Miyake in seventh.

Okusa and Igor Fraga ended up a lapped 12th after Fraga went off at SP corner, the legacy of a puncture caused by contact with Alesi, prompting a second trip to the pits.

Late Contact Decides GT300 Battle in Favor of LM Corsa Lexus

An unpredictable battle for GT300 class honors went the way of Hiroki Yoshimoto and Shunsuke Kohno’s LM Corsa Lexus LC500 after Kondo Racing Nissan driver Joao Paulo de Oliveira lost the lead late on after contact with a GT500 car.

Yoshimoto and Kohno repeated their win from last year’s Sugo race after de Oliveira was nudged off track at Hi-Point corner by Toshiki Oyu’s Cerumo Toyota GT500 car, which allowed Kohno through into a lead he wouldn’t lose.

Kondo gained the advantage by gambling on not changing tires at the pit stops as Iori Kimura handed over to de Oliveira, who was nursing a small advantage on his worn Yokohama runner over Kohno as the race entered its closing stages.

However, second place still gives de Oliveira and Kimura a comfortable championship lead of 18 points over CarGuy MKS Racing’s Zak O’Sullivan with three races left.

O’Sullivan was on course for a fourth place finish in the CarGuy Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo he shares with Kiyoshi Umegaki, only for Umegaki to run out of fuel on the last lap. With the rest of the field a lap down, O’Sullivan and Umegaki were credited with ninth.

Subaru pair Hideki Yamauchi and Takuto Iguchi converted second on the grid into third place in an unusually straightforward run, while Sven Mueller made a late charge to fourth in the Seven x Seven Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo, recovering from a slow pit stop that undid strong early progress by Taichi Watarai.

It’s a result that puts Mueller fourth in the championship behind D’station Racing Aston Martin pair Tomonobu Fujii and Charlie Fagg, who failed to score in 21st after dropping down in the pit stop phase and mid-race contact with the Rookie Racing Toyota.

UPDATE: Umegaki was later handed a 40-second time penalty for stopping on track when running out of fuel, instead of pulling off circuit, a result that demotes he and O’Sullivan from ninth to 13th in the final results.

It puts O’Sullivan back to third in the points, behind Fujii and Fagg, and means de Oliveira and Kimura lead by 21 points at the head of the table.

RESULTS: GT500/GT300