Monday, December 30, 2024

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Nissan, Honda and Toyota GT500 range

Nissan

Nissan announced a significant overhaul of its lineup on Thursday, ending a 10-year partnership between Ronnie Quintarelli and Tsugio Matsuda.

While Quintarelli will proceed to pilot the flagship No. 23 NISMO, as he has done since 2013, Matsuda will move to Kondo Racing alongside GT500 newcomer Teppei Natori. Quintarelli can have a brand new teammate in Katsumasa Chiyo, who spent the last 4 seasons with NDDP.

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Chiyo's move to the No. 23 NISMO paved the way in which for Atsushi Miyake to step as much as the highest SUPER GT class after racing within the GT300 with Max Racing last yr. Miyake might be competing in each of Japan's major championships this yr, having recently been announced as the only real ThreeBond Racing driver for the 2024 Super Formula season.

Team Impul is the one Nissan team to retain its driver lineup, with 2022 champions Kazuki Hiramine and Bertrand Baguette remaining for one more yr.

Nissan also announced that the NDDP and NISMO Z cars will switch to Bridgestone tires following Michelin's withdrawal from the series.

Honda

Honda has also reshuffled its driver line-up for the 2024 season, when the brand new Civic Type R will join the series.

First, Nobuharu Matsushita will leave Real Racing and join ARTA #8, where he’ll team up with Tomoki Nojiri.

His place at Real might be taken by Kakunoshin Ota after the young Japanese driver impressed the brand during his previous stint with Nakajima Racing.

Joining the GT500 debut might be two latest Honda drivers, Riki Okusa and Ren Sato. Okusa moves from the Nissan GT300 squad to partner Takuya Izawa at Nakajima, while Sato will join Hiroki Otsu within the ARTA No. 16. Sato last competed in SUPER GT with the ARTA GT300 team in 2021, and has spent the last two seasons racing in Super Formula .

As expected, Honda has hired Naoki Yamamoto and Tadasuke Makino at Kunimitsu, and Yamamoto is now in a position to return to racing after a terrifying crash at Sugo last yr.

Toyotas

Two drivers will leave Honda and join the Toyota GT500 line-up in SUPER GT, Nirei Fukuzumi and Toshiki Oyu.

Fukuzumi will drive for Rookie Racing with Kazuya Oshima, taking Kenta Yamashita's place after Yamashita's promotion to the #36 TOM'S Supra alongside Sho Tsuboi.

Meanwhile, Oyu will join Hiroki Ishiura at Cerumo to switch the retired Yuji Tachikawa. In addition to Tachikawa, one other top driver leaving SUPER GT is last yr's champion Ritomo Miyata, who will undertake a dual program in Formula 2 and the European Le Mans Series in 2024.

All three remaining Toyota cars will proceed production with unchanged drivers.

SUPER GT 2024 GT500 entry list:

Producer

Team

Tire

NO.

Drivers

Nissan

With GT500

NDDP Racing

Bridgestone

3

Japan Sushi Miyake

Japan Mitsunori Takaboshi

Team Impulse

Bridgestone

12

Belgium Bertrand's baguette

Japan Kazuki Hiramine

NISMO

Bridgestone

23

Italy Ronnie Quintarelli

Japan Katsumasa Chiyo

Kondo Racing

Yokohama

24

Japan Teppei Natori

Japan Tsugio Matsuda

Toyotas

GR Supra

Novice racing

Bridgestone

14

Japan Kazuya Oshima

Japan Nirei Fukuzumi

Bandoh racing project

Yokohama

19

Japan Yuji Kunimoto

Japan Sena Sakaguchi

IT HAS

Bridgestone

36

Japan Sho Tsuboi

Japan Kenta Yamashita

37

France Giuliano Alesi

Japan Ukyo Sasahara

Cerumo

Bridgestone

38

Japan Hiroaki Ishiura

Japan Toshiki Oyu

SARD

Bridgestone

39

Japan Yuhi Sekiguchi

Japan Yuichi Nakayama

Honda

Civic (type R-GT)

PIECE

Bridgestone

8

Japan Tomoki Nojiri

Japan Nobuharu Matsushita

16

Japan Ren Sato

Japan Hiroki Otsu

An actual race

Bridgestone

17

Japan Koudai Tsukakoshi

Japan Kakunoshin Ota

Nakajima Racing

Dunlop

64

Japan Takuya Izawa

Japan Riki Okusa

Team Kunimitsu

Bridgestone

100

Japan Naoki Yamamoto

Japan Tadasuke Makino

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