Nojiri, Sato Win as Honda Sweeps Podium at Suzuka

Honda took its second straight SUPER GT victory in Sunday’s Suzuka 300km as Tomoki Nojiri and Ren Sato led a top-three lockout for the new-for-2026 Prelude.

From fourth on the grid, the Team Mugen-run No. 16 Honda HRC Prelude-GT prevailed by 2.220 seconds over the pole-winning Real Racing car of Koudai Tsukakoshi and Yuto Nomura in a 52-lap race that finished behind the safety car.

That was following a major crash at 130R for the Saitama Green Brave Toyota GT300 car of Hiroki Yoshida, who walked away unaided after the impact.

What began as a four-way battle among the Honda crews that locked out the front two rows on the grid developed into a straight fight between ARTA’s No. 16 car and the Real machine, which led early on in the hands of GT500 rookie Nomura.

Riki Okusa meanwhile slipped from second to fourth on the opening lap as he struggled to warm his Nakajima Racing Honda’s Dunlop tires, with Hiroki Otsu taking up the baton as Nomura’s nearest challenger ahead of ARTA stablemate Nojiri.

However, it soon became clear that the semi-works No. 8 car also lacked the pace, and Otsu duly slipped behind Nojiri at the chicane on lap three, and after an early full-course yellow period Otsu was repassed by Okusa for third.

Nomura maintained the lead until coming in on lap 18 to serve his mandatory pit stop, handing over to Tsukakoshi, while Nojiri stayed out until lap 22.

Sato, taking over the No. 16 ARTA machine, looked as if he might barely have a large enough gap to complete the overcut, but lost traction exiting the hairpin, allowing Tsukakoshi the chance to draw alongside and pass for the lead at Spoon Curve.

However, by lap 36 Sato was back on Tsukakoshi’s tail, making a bold lunge at the final chicane that failed to pay off, and retook the lead the next time around at 130R as Tsukakoshi was wrong-footed by the NILZZ Racing Nissan GT300 car.

That was how the order remained, with Sato scoring his first GT500 win and Nojiri’s 11th, giving the Aguri Suzuki-led ARTA team its first victory in two years.

After taking over the No. 8 ARTA car from Otsu, Kaku Ohta took a second straight podium for the car in third, passing both a struggling Igor Fraga in the Nakajima Honda and Atsushi Miyake’s Kondo Racing Nissan Z NISMO on their out laps.

In the closing stages Ohta came under pressure from Katsumasa Chiyo’s works NISMO Nissan, but the safety car froze the order, with Chiyo and Mitsunori Takaboshi finishing fourth ahead of Cerumo Toyota GR Supra pair Toshiki Oyu and Rikuto Kobayashi.

Bertrand Baguette and Kazuki Hiramine finished sixth in the Impul Nissan ahead of Miyake and Teppei Natori in the Kondo Racing example.

Championship leaders Sho Tsuboi and Kenta Yamashita scored two points for ninth in the No. 36 TOM’S Toyota, saddled with a nominal 96 kg handicap, gaining a place late on when Fraga made light contact with Yoshida’s GT300 GR Supra at Degner.

It leaves the pair on 50 points with four races remaining, 17 points ahead of their new nearest rivals in the championship, Nojiri and Sato, with eighth-place finishers Kazuya Oshima and Nirei Fukuzumi (Rookie Racing Toyota) slipping to third.

The No. 37 TOM’S car scored the last point in 10th after an engine change and subsequent five-second penalty stop, along with the Team Kunimitsu Honda that was forced to do the same thing between practice and qualifying on Saturday.

Pacific Racing BMW Takes Dominant Pole-to-Win in GT300

In the GT300 class, Pacific Racing’s BMW M4 GT3 EVO proved unstoppable as Yusuke Tomibayashi and Yuta Fujiwara took both their and the team’s maiden wins, while delivering BMW and tire supplier Michelin their first wins since 2023.

From pole, 20-year-old Fujiwara — contesting his first full SUPER GT season and without a point to his name prior to this race — drove away from the pack in his opening stint as the D’station Racing Aston Martin and Subaru squabbled over second early on.

The works Subaru of Takuto Iguchi was the first of the frontrunners to hit trouble, and was already losing ground when Iguchi was rear-ended by the PONOS Racing Ferrari of Shintaro Kawabata, leaving him stranded in the gravel and triggering a FCY.

The pit stop phase began on lap 16 after that early FCY period, with Fujiwara leaving it until lap 24 to hand over to Tomibayashi, who was untroubled out front and was in possession of a near-20 second lead when the safety car came out.

Shunsuke Kohno’s LM Corsa Lexus LC500 looked on course for second having run third early on, overcutting past the D’station Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo that Tomonobu Fujii brought in to hand over to Charlie Fagg, until the closing stages.

Kohno was coming under pressure from Zak O’Sullivan, up to third in the CarGuy MKS Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo started by Kiyoshi Umegaki, and conceded second at the chicane before pitting to replace what appeared to be a slow puncture.

That left O’Sullivan and Umegaki clear to finish second and promoted the Team UpGarage Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Takashi Kobayashi and Kotaro Shimbara to the final podium place, followed by Fujii and Fagg’s Aston Martin.

Kondo Racing’s Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 shared by Joao Paulo de Oliveira and Iori Kimura recovered from 18th to finish fifth, one place ahead of the No. 88 JLOC Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 in which Daniil Kvyat matched his best finish of sixth.

It promotes de Oliveira and Kimura back into the lead of the championship by a single point from Fujii and Fagg, with O’Sullivan five points back in a solo third place — as Toyota junior Umegaki didn’t contest the opening round at Okayama.

As well as the Green Brave Toyota, which looked to be on course for a top-six until Yoshida was rear-ended by Fraga’s Honda, two other title-contending teams failed to score.

LEON Racing Mercedes-AMG pair Naoya Gamou and Togo Suganami were well inside the top ten when they were hit with a drive-through for an unsafe pit release, ending up 17th, while Inging’s Toyota GR86 GT was 20th, having served an early drive-through after Kazuhisa Urabe made contact with the Velorex Ferrari.