Makino Spearheads PONOS Ferrari Lineup for Suzuka

Honda SUPER GT star Tadasuke Makino will spearhead the lineup of the PONOS Racing Ferrari team for next month’s Suzuka 1000km.

Makino, who races in the GT500 class for the Team Kunimitsu Honda team, will share the Pro class-entered No. 45 Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo with GT300 regulars Seita Nonaka and Takuro Shinohara for the Intercontinental GT Challenge fixture on Sept. 11-13.

It will mark 2020 GT500 champion Makino’s first race outing with PONOS and at the wheel of a Ferrari GT3 car, although he is understood to have driven for the team in paid practice sessions in SRO Japan Cup competition earlier this year.

Makino previously raced in the Suzuka 10 Hours for Team UpGarage at the wheel of a Honda NSX GT3 Evo back in 2019.

Shinohara is one of PONOS’ two regular drivers in its SUPER GT entry alongside Shintaro Kawabata, while Nonaka is mostly known for driving Toyota machinery, and currently races for the Saitama Green Brave team in the GT300 class.

In addition to announcing a completely fresh driver lineup compared to the one it revealed at the start of the year, PONOS also revealed that it has entered into a technical partnership with fellow GT300 squad D’station Racing.

While D’station is best known for running Aston Martin machinery in SUPER GT, it also runs a Ferrari GT3 car in Super Taikyu.

PONOS team owner Yorikatsu Tsujiko commented: “Last year was PONOS Racing’s first appearance in the Suzuka 1000km, and we learnt a lot from this experience.

“Building on this, we are welcoming three outstanding top-class drivers from the world of domestic motorsport in Makino, Nonaka and Shinohara, and the entire team is working in unison to ensure we are fully prepared.

“Also, we have established a support structure for vehicle operations and race engineering together with D’station Racing.

“Suzuka is a gruelling race featuring many strong teams gathering from around the world, but we are aiming not just to compete near the front but to win the race outright.

“We will fight with everything we have until the end to live up to the expectations of the fans who support us and everybody involved, so we ask for your support.”