In Tokyo, on December 23rd, Honda and Honda Racing Corporation (HRC) announced their SUPER GT program for 2026. As was announced earlier, Honda teams in the GT500 class will be entering with the “PRELUDE-GT” race machine that takes the new Prelude model as its base. As in the 2025 season, there will again be five cars entered, but with different team organizations.
*The photograph above shows a demonstration run by the PRELUDE GT at the 2025 Round 8 at Motegi
As for the team makeups and the drivers, ARTA, which ran two cars in the 2025 season, will now have car No. 8 running as the new “Team HRC ARTA MUGEN” formed in conjunction with Team HRC. Returning as its first driver next season will be Kakunoshin Ohta, who raced overseas last season and did not participate in SUPER GT. The second driver will be Hiroki Otsu, who moves to the team after driving car No. 16 last season. Also, car No. 16 will be entered next season as the “ARTA MUGEN” and will be driven by Tomoki Nojiri, who moves to the team after driving car No. 8 last season, and he will be joined by Ren Sato.
The No. 17 Astemo REAL RACING team will have as first driver again next season Koudai Tsukakoshi, and teaming with Tsukakoshi will be Yuto Nomura, who debuted in the GT300 class this season driving car No. 18 and got won win, while also winning the 2025 championship title in the Super Formula Lights series. As for the No. 64 Modulo Nakajima Racing team, with the retirement of Takuya Izawa as of this season, he will be replaced by Riki Okusa, who moves up to the position of first driver. His partner will now be Igor Omura Fraga, who drove car No. 26 in the GT300 class this season and made an impressive showing by getting a podium finish in the Opening Round.
Regarding the No. 100 STANLEY TEAM KUNIMITSU team, which was the only one entered with the CIVIC TYPE R-GT last season to win a victory and stay in the title race until the final round, its driver pair remains unchanged for next season with Naoki Yamamoto and Tadasuke Makino.
According to the announcement, a new position of Technical Director will be established in SUPER GT on January 1st, 2026. Also, several engineers will be placed under the Technical Director to concentrate on supporting the five teams using the Honda HRC PRELUDE-GT. What’s more, the ARTA No. 8’s team name will be changed to Team HRC ARTA MUGEN, and several specialized engineers will work to further develop the car in close collaboration with the team staffs and the drivers.
■The 2026 Honda Racing GT500 program
