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.
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 |
Sushi Miyake Mitsunori Takaboshi |
Team Impulse |
Bridgestone |
12 |
Bertrand's baguette Kazuki Hiramine |
|
NISMO |
Bridgestone |
23 |
Ronnie Quintarelli Katsumasa Chiyo |
|
Kondo Racing |
Yokohama |
24 |
Teppei Natori Tsugio Matsuda |
|
Toyotas GR Supra |
Novice racing |
Bridgestone |
14 |
Kazuya Oshima Nirei Fukuzumi |
Bandoh racing project |
Yokohama |
19 |
Yuji Kunimoto Sena Sakaguchi |
|
IT HAS |
Bridgestone |
36 |
Sho Tsuboi Kenta Yamashita |
|
37 |
Giuliano Alesi Ukyo Sasahara |
|||
Cerumo |
Bridgestone |
38 |
Hiroaki Ishiura Toshiki Oyu |
|
SARD |
Bridgestone |
39 |
Yuhi Sekiguchi Yuichi Nakayama |
|
Honda Civic (type R-GT)
|
PIECE |
Bridgestone |
8 |
Tomoki Nojiri Nobuharu Matsushita |
16 |
Ren Sato Hiroki Otsu |
|||
An actual race |
Bridgestone |
17 |
Koudai Tsukakoshi Kakunoshin Ota |
|
Nakajima Racing |
Dunlop |
64 |
Takuya Izawa Riki Okusa |
|
Team Kunimitsu |
Bridgestone |
100 |
Naoki Yamamoto Tadasuke Makino |