SUPER GT reveals 42-car entry list for Okayama opener

The 43 cars that appeared on the full-season entry list unveiled in February will appear for the curtain raiser on April 16-17, with the exception of the #244 Max Racing Toyota GR Supra in the GT300 class.

As previously reported by Motorsport.com, Max Racing is absent from the opener following the death of team owner Tsuyoshi Oono last month, sidelining drivers Atsushi Miyake and Kimiya Sato.

However, the team has since announced plans to return from May’s second round at Fuji Speedway.

There are no surprises on the GT500 portion of the entry list for Okayama, with the 15 cars that took part in the two pre-season tests last month expected to be on the grid with driver line-ups unchanged.

List of GT500 entries:

In the GT300 class, which is reduced to 27 cars in the absence of the Max Racing team, there are some additions and changes to driver line-ups from official pre-season testing.

The Mach team has announced that its Toyota 86 MC, one of only two so-called “Mother Chassis” cars in the field, will be driven full-time this season by Reiji Hiraki and rookie Yusuke Tomibayashi.

Esports champion Tomibayashi emerged victorious in a three-way driver evaluation test in Okayama against fellow Super Taikyu racers Masaya Kono and Kazuya Oshima (not to be confused with Toyota factory driver), and has drove the No. 5 Toyota single-handedly in the more recent Fuji test.

#5 Machyaken Air Buster MC86

Photo by: Masahide Kamio

Elsewhere, as Motorsport.com reports, Pacific CarGuy Racing gets an all-professional line-up of Kei Cozzolino and Naoki Yokomizo for the Okayama opener, with gentleman racer Takeshi Kimura taking part in the curtain-raiser instead. the European Le Mans Series to Paul Ricard.

Yokomizo replaced Kimura twice last year and was also present alongside Cozzolino and Kimura at Fuji pre-season testing in the team’s Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo.

Meanwhile, BMW Team Studie has tentatively entered Augusto Farfus alongside Seiji Ara, but like Kimura, Farfus is expected to race in the ELMS opener this weekend instead.

Should the Brazilian fail to race as planned, the team’s third driver, Tsubasa Kondo, who partnered Ara for the two official pre-season tests, would take Farfus’ place aboard the BMW M4 GT3 n °7.

Yuki Tanaka has meanwhile been finalized as the teammate of Taiyou Ida (formerly known as Taiyou Iida) for the new campaign aboard the #48 NILZZ Racing Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3.

Team Gainer, who suffered chassis damage to their #10 GT-R in a crash during Fuji’s pre-season testing, are set to be on the grid at Okayama with regular duo Ryuichiro Tomita and new came Riki Okusa.

List of GT300 class entries: