GR GT3 Confirmed for Motegi; Miyata Replaces O’Sullivan

Toyota’s new GR GT3 will make its long-awaited race debut in ‘concept’ form in next month’s SUPER GT season finale at Mobility Resort Motegi.

Confirmed upon the publication of the entry list for the double-header event on Nov. 7-8, Rookie Racing’s No. 32 entry in the GT300 class, previously a Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, is listed as the ‘ENEOS X PRIME GR GT3 concept’ using Bridgestone tires.

It follows a recent shakedown of a freshly built GR GT3 by the Akio Toyoda-owned team at Fuji Speedway earlier this month, just before the Autopolis round.

Hiroaki Ishiura, who has served as one of the development drivers for the hotly-anticipated new car that is set for a wider debut in 2027, shares driving duties with his regular co-driver, Toyota junior driver Tokiya Suzuki, at Motegi.

The car will compete as an ‘open’ entry that is not eligible to score points, and as such does not have a published Balance of Performance.

Rookie Racing’s switch is just one of several notable changes to the entry for the Motegi weekend, which incorporates two races of 250km, with the Saturday event effectively the replacement for the cancelled Sepang round in June.

As announced by the team late last week, 2023 GT500 champion Ritomo Miyata is returning to SUPER GT at Motegi with CarGuy MKS Racing.

Miyata will share the No. 7 Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo with Kiyoshi Umegaki, as title contender Zak O’Sullivan bows out of his campaign early in order to focus on testing duties for his upcoming Formula E campaign with Envision Racing.

It marks Miyata’s first appearance in the series since the end of 2023, when he won the GT500 title for TOM’S alongside Sho Tsuboi, before moving to Europe for a twin FIA Formula 2 and European Le Mans Series campaign in 2024.

For the last two years he has focused purely on F2, but with Tsuboi tipped to move to the single-seater series in 2027, a move in the opposite direction back to the domestic Japanese scene is regarded as a strong possibility for Miyata.

Elsewhere, D’station Racing has been forced into a driver change because Tomonobu Fujii has been banned from competing at Motegi.

That follows an incident at Autopolis, where Fujii is claimed to have deliberately driven into O’Sullivan’s CarGuy MKS Ferrari on the cooldown lap.

Fujii has been handed a virtually unprecedented ten penalty points for the incident, crossing the threshold to be suspended for the next competition, the strictest punishment available under SUPER GT’s ‘moral hazard’ system.

Instead, Tsubasa Kondo will share D’station’s Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo with Charlie Fagg, returning to the grid after being part of Seven x Seven Racing’s lineup last year.

Kondo is a member of D’station’s Super Taikyu program with a Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo.

Another change of note concerns Anest Iwata Racing, as Yusuke Mitsui will partner Hironobu Yasuda after making his debut for the team as the third driver at Autopolis, replacing South Korean driver Lee Jung Woo.

Late Autopolis Disqualifications Change GT300 Title Picture

The points table for the GT300 class has been altered heading into the Motegi finale following a pair of disqualifications from the Autopolis race that were only made official days after the official results had already been published.

Both the Seven x Seven Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo and JLOC’s No. 88 Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 had already been penalized for not serving their two mandatory refuelling stops correctly, but both cars were subsequently excluded entirely.

That has had the effect of lifting the championship-leading Kondo Racing Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 of Joao Paulo de Oliveira and Iori Kimura from 14th to 12th in the standings, boosting their points total to 73.

De Oliveira and Kimura are now 17 points clear of nearest rival O’Sullivan, but with the British driver sitting out the Motegi round, the Kondo pair have an effective 20-point buffer over CarGuy’s Umegaki, as well as LEON Racing pair Naoya Gamou and Togo Suganami and Inging drivers Yuui Tsutsumi and Kazuhisa Urabe.

With Fujii banned from driving, D’station’s Fagg will be aiming for a solo comeback, 25 points down on de Oliveira and Kimura with 52 still up for grabs.

RESULTS: GT300 (Revised)