MARCH 10, 2005

Big guns line up for Japanese Super GT series

Although Toyota and Honda are big players in Formula 1 but companies have a considerable interest in the Japanese Super GT Championships, where they find themselves head-to-head with each other and with Nissan. The series is growing in popularity all the time and is going international this year.

Toyota will be running a total of six cats this year with Team Cerumo boasting a new recruit in former F1 driver Toranosuke Takagi, who was competing in IRL last year. Takagi will join Yuji Tachikawa. Team TOM'S Toyota will field Sakon Yamamoto and Team Sard will run the All Japan Formula 3 champion Ronnie Quintarelli.

Nissan will be running four of its Fairlady Z cars with NISMO cars being driven by Satoshi Motoyama and Richard Lyons, backed up by Masataka Yanagida and Michael Krumm. Team Impul will run a similar car for Yuji Ide while Hasemi Motorsports with another former F1 man Erik Comas.

Honda in the meantime will run four of its NSX-GTs with two cars under the Team Honda Racing banner in addition to entries for Nakajima Racing and Team Kunimitsu. Team Honda Racing will feature Daisuke Ito, Jonathan Cochet, Takeshi Kogure and Ryo Michigami while Nakajima will run Tsugio Matsuda and Andre Lotterer and Team Kunimitsu will feature Sebastien Philippe and Jeremie Dufour. With technology so restricted in F1 these days, much effort goes into the impressive Super GTs, which are now Japan's most popular racing series.