Toyota’s Kotaka Joins Porsche Center Okazaki

Toyota junior driver Kazuto Kotaka will contest this year’s GT World Challenge Asia powered by AWS with the Porsche Center Okazaki team.

Kotaka will partner gentleman driver Hiroaki Nagai aboard the team’s No. 18 Porsche 911 GT3 R for a partial campaign that encompasses three of the six races, plus the Suzuka 1000km Intercontinental GT Challenge fixture in September.

The two are well-known to each other from racing together for apr in both SUPER GT and Super Taikyu, although Kotaka has left the team this year to take up a reserve driver role across Toyota’s GT500 roster.

For Suzuka, Kotaka and Nagai will be joined in the car by Takuro Shinohara, who was dropped by the LEON Racing Mercedes-AMG in SUPER GT last winter.

The Pro-Am-entered No. 18 car is set to race at Mandalika, Fuji and Okayama, skipping the Sepang, Buriram and Beijing rounds due to calendar clashes with Nagai’s other commitments, including SUPER GT and Super Taikyu.

Kiyoshi Uchiyama and Tsubasa Kondo will continue to share the No. 25 Silver-Am entry, but with Kondo skipping two races — Sepang and Beijing — that conflict with his SUPER GT duties with the new Seven x Seven Racing outfit.

For those races, Yuta Kamimura will deputize for Kondo.

An entry for the No. 25 in the Suzuka 1000km is ‘TBC’ according to the team.