Craft-Bamboo Reveals Two-Car Mercedes-AMG Suzuka Entry

Craft-Bamboo Racing has revealed a two-car entry for next month’s Suzuka 1000km round of the Intercontinental GT Challenge with a pair of Mercedes-AMG entries, with factory pair Maxime Martin and Luca Stolz joining its assault for overall honors.

IGTC title contenders Martin and Stolz will share the Pro class No. 77 Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo with Honda factory driver and Suzuka specialist Kaku Ohta as they bid to give the Three-Pointed Star a third win of the season on Sept. 11-13.

The No. 28 Pro-Am car will be driven by Joao Paulo de Oliveira, Daisuke Yamawaki and Kevin Tse, the last-named hoping to repeat his class win from last year.

While Martin will race for Craft-Bamboo for the first time, Stolz has made a handful of appearances for the team in the past, with the most recent one coming in the Indianapolis 8 Hour round of the IGTC in 2021.

Ohta, a Craft-Bamboo regular in Super Taikyu, was part of the squad’s Suzuka Pro lineup last year with Ralf Aron and Maxi Goetz, finishing 10th overall.

De Oliveira likewise is no stranger to Craft-Bamboo, having driven for the team sporadically in Super Taikyu and GT World Challenge Asia powered by AWS alongside his regular SUPER GT commitments with Nissan and Kondo Racing.

Yamawaki has been a regular in Super Taikyu’s ST-X (GT4) class in recent seasons, but won the outright title in 2020 driving an AMG GT3 for Hirix Racing.

Both Craft-Bamboo AMGs will wear special taxi-inspired liveries, the Pro effort with green-and-yellow colors mimicking the appearance of classic Tokyo Musen group taxis, and the Am entry with a mostly red Hong Kong-derived scheme.

“Returning to Suzuka with a two-car entry is something everyone at Mercedes-AMG Team Craft-Bamboo Racing is looking forward to,” said team director Darryl O’Young.

“Suzuka is one of the greatest circuits in the world and it always presents an enormous challenge, not just for the drivers, but for the entire team as well.

“We are looking forward to fielding such a strong line-up across both classes, drivers and crew who know what it takes to perform under pressure.

“After our success in Pro-Am last year, we are motivated to come back and fight for another big result, and we hope the Japan and Hong Kong taxi-inspired liveries will make this campaign even more memorable for the team and our fans.”

Stolz and Martin sit second and third in the IGTC drivers’ standings, split by one point.

Both trail fellow Mercedes-AMG factory pilot Maro Engel, who will contest the clashing DTM round at the Sachsenring, and is also set to miss the IGTC finale at Indianapolis in October owing to another conflict with the German-based series.

Also representing Mercedes-AMG in this year’s Suzuka 1000km will be 75 Express, which fields a Pro class entry for Kenny Habul, Philip Ellis and Mikael Grenier.

The team contested the Bronze division last year with Habul flanked by Yannick Mettler and Dominik Baumann.

Grenier and Ellis meanwhile drove for GruppeM and GetSpeed respectively.