Goodsmile Racing Confirms Spa 24H Return with Mercedes

Japanese Super GT squad Goodsmile Racing will return to the Total 24 Hours of Spa this year with a Mercedes-AMG GT3 run under the Goodsmile & Type-Moon Racing banner.

The team’s full-season Super GT drivers Nobuteru Taniguchi and Tatsuya Kataoka will be joined by 2016 Nurburgring 24 winner Adam Christodoulou for the third round of the Intercontinental GT Challenge powered by Pirelli.

It will mark Goodsmile’s second appearance in the Spa 24 after it ran a Mercedes in the 2017 edition with Taniguchi and Kataoka sharing the seat with Toyota Gazoo Racing LMP1 star Kamui Kobayashi.

The team’s Mercedes will once again sport an anime-inspired livery with this year’s scheme celebrating the 15th anniversary of Fate, the lead character of a popular Type-Moon graphic novel.

Two-time Nurburgring 24-winning squad Black Falcon and long-time Goodsmile partner RS Fine will support the entry, which in 2017 was part-operated by Ukyo Katayama’s eponymous team.

Goodsmile is now set to take part in two IGTC rounds in 2019 with a further outing in the Suzuka 8 Hours, which falls four weeks after Spa, also in the works.

A Japanese team has not won the Spa 24 Hours since 1991, when Team Zexel took overall honors with a Nissan Skyline GT-R.