‘All-Japanese’ Le Mans Dream Behind PONOS LMP2 Effort

Kei Cozzolino says that a desire to earn an entry to the 24 Hours of Le Mans as an ‘all-Japanese team’ is the driving force behind PONOS Racing entering the Asian Le Mans Series in the LMP2 class for the upcoming 2025/26 season.

It was announced in May that PONOS, which runs Ferrari GT3 machinery in SUPER GT and the SRO-run Japan Cup, will be making its first foray into prototype racing in partnership with K2 R&D, which has previous experience in LMP2.

The team, which will be staffed by in-house PONOS mechanics working alongside K2 R&D engineering staff, will field an ORECA 07 Gibson to be driven by Cozzolino, PONOS CEO Yorikatsu Tsujiko and a third driver to be announced later.

Cozzolino and Tsujiko were part of the lineup for the PONOS-sponsored Kessel Racing Ferrari 488 GTE at Le Mans in 2023, and Cozzolino explained that the team’s desire to earn an entry for the French classic in its own right was behind the move.

It was also considered that the experience gained in the series, which begins in December at Sepang, will also ultimately benefit the squad’s other programs.

“First of all we went to Le Mans in 2023 and it was a wonderful adventure,” Cozzolino told Sportscar365. “But during that adventure, Yori [Tsujiko] spotted an LMP2 car while we were testing at Monza and he was like, ‘What is this car?’

“I explained to him and then when we saw those cars running at Le Mans, it lit up something inside him.

“Yori was able to meet with Haruki Kurosawa from K2 R&D, and he received a proposal from them. I was consulted by Yori, and I said, ‘We have this chance, so why not?’

“Also when you look at the grid in the Asian Le Mans Series, there are 25 GT cars and only one of those gets the auto-invite to Le Mans. The grid in LMP2 is much slimmer and we thought maybe there is a bigger chance.

“Of course it won’t be easy, but you get to race the fastest car after Hypercar, and for Yori and myself, to be able to drive this faster car will improve our driving and maybe make us better in GT3 as well. So we decided to green-light it.

“We don’t have much time. We haven’t announced the third driver yet. But the idea is to go there as a purely Japanese team and aim to go to Le Mans. That’s the target.”

Cozzolino and Tsujiko will join United Autosports for a private test next week at Silverstone to familiarize themselves with the ORECA LMP2 car, and the team plans to hold a shakedown in Japan once it takes delivery of its new chassis.

The announcement of PONOS making a foray into the LMP2 class of the Asian Le Mans Series came not long before it was revealed by the ACO that the series would be admitting Hypercar entries for the 2026/27 season.

Ferrari has already expressed interest in supporting customers to run the 499P in Asia, albeit most likely on a semi-works basis, and PONOS would be a logical candidate to embark on such a program given its pre-existing ties to the Prancing Horse.

However, Cozzolino downplayed the chance of a PONOS-branded Ferrari Hypercar coming to fruition in the near term in consideration of the team’s existing commitments.

“Anything is possible,” said Cozzolino. “Even with this LMP2 project, we never imagined we would get the chance. The Hypercar announcement caught our attention and got our hearts racing a bit! But there are many considerations.

“First of all, there are the costs. Plus, we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. We’re already doing SUPER GT and Japan Cup, trying to win both of those, then LMP2 comes after that. We already have a packed schedule.

“It would be a dream, but for the moment we want to focus on the programs we have.”