Makino Feels PONOS “Showed We Can Fight” Top Teams

Tadasuke Makino believes PONOS Racing showed the potential to fight against the Intercontinental GT Challenge’s top teams in Sunday’s Suzuka 1000km, after spending a portion of the race battling the race-winning AO by Absolute Porsche.

Honda SUPER GT regular Makino was part of an all-Japanese Pro lineup aboard the No. 45 Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo alongside Seita Nonaka and Takuro Shinohara, who ended up as the Prancing Horse’s top representative at the finish in sixth overall.

From second on the grid, Makino was at the wheel of the car for the opening two stints, dropping to third behind the No. 7 Absolute Racing Porsche of Ayhancan Guven and then spending the second stint locked in battle with Scott McLaughlin’s Johor Motorsports JMR Corvette and Julien Andlauer in the No. 8 ‘Bushi Rex’ Porsche that went on to win.

That was before Shinohara ground to a halt on track along the back straight not long after taking over at the wheel from Makino, which cut the PONOS Ferrari adrift of the lead pack and left it facing a lonely drive to sixth, two laps down.

“I’m really disappointed about the issue we had, which was related to the gearbox,” Makino told Sportscar365. “The car got stuck in gear, but I am not sure how.

“Saturday was a strong day for us, and we showed a good qualifying performance. But the race is a different situation to qualifying. I think Porsche saved a little bit in qualifying for BoP [reasons] and that’s why they were so quick in the race.

“My stint was quite fun. At the beginning I was struggling because we went to the grid on wet tires [before changing to slicks on the grid] and we only had one formation lap, so the warm-up was hard to manage and the tire pressure was higher than I expected.

“For the second stint, we had the right tyre pressures and the balance came back. But unfortunately I lost about five seconds on my in lap because I was stuck behind one of the really slow cars at Degner. That’s why we lost two positions.

“But after that I was fighting against the [No. 2 JMR] Corvette and the [No. 8 AO by Absolute] Porsche during this stint, which was really fun. I was really enjoying it, pushing to the maximum always. I think we showed we can fight.”

Makino, who races in Super Formula as well as SUPER GT, was making only his second GT3 start and his first since he participated in the Suzuka 10 Hours in 2019 driving a Honda NSX GT3 Evo for Team UpGarage.

The 29-year-old, who returns to Honda SUPER GT duties this weekend at Sugo, said that he plans to seek out further chances to race internationally in future, which he also feels would be a benefit to his core programs in Japan.

“It’s only the second time in my career doing a GT3 race, but overall I would say it has been a really good experience for me,” said Makino.

“For example, it was my first time doing qualifying on a dark track, so I had to adjust little bit; it felt really different compared to a normal qualifying.

“I think it’s really important that PONOS Racing created this opportunity to have three Japanese drivers racing for a Japanese team. I enjoyed it a lot and I hope I can have the chance to drive more in this kind of ‘world championship’ race.”