2019.01.11

Honda presents its 2019 plan at Tokyo Auto Salon. The champion team will continue. Big reform at Nakajima Racing! New faces are onboarding GT300.

SUPER GT-competitor Honda became first among all manufacturers to announce its motorsports activity plan for 2019, which took place on January 11th at the Tokyo Auto Salon, a staple event know to gather many automobile fans as well as SUPER GT fans. Affiliating ARTA and Nakajima Racing also held a presentation session at the venue.

ARTA revealed fielding of a Honda NSX GT3 in the GT300 class. SUBARU will continue with BRZ in the GT300 class, which the automaker said the detail will be shared later. Cars Tokai Dream28, UPGARAGE, and K-tunes Racing Team also announced their team plans.

 

 

 

 

Honda unveiled its GT500 team plan. Fully psyched up for a back-to-back title!

 

 

As in last year, Honda's announcement of their plan for the SUPER GT came at the Tokyo Auto Salon again this year. Honda will compete with the same five cars as last year, No.8 AUTOBACS RACING TEAM AGURI (ARTA), No.16 TEAM MUGEN, No.17 KEIHIN REAL RACING, No.64 Modulo Nakajima Racing, and TEAM KUNIMITSU, which will have its car number changed from 100 to the champion's number, No.1, to form a 5 car / 5 team structure.

In the driver lineup, No.1 car will continued to be driven by the champion combination of Naoki Yamamoto and Jenson Button. No.8 car will have Tomoki Nojiri / Takuya Izawa and No.16 car will be with Hideki Mutoh / Daisuke Nakajima, which confirms that these three teams will see no change in their driver lineup.

No.17 car will invite Bertrand Baguette as Koudai Tsukakoshi's partner. No.64 car will have a driver combination of new comers to GT500, Narain Karthikeyan and rookie Tadasuke Makino. Tire suppliers of each team remains the same as last year, Bridgestone for No.1, No.8, and No.17 cars, Yokohama for No.16 car, and Dunlop for No.64 car.

 

 

After debuting in the GT300 class last year, No.34 Modulo Drago CORSE will have no changes in its driver lineup of Ryo Michigami / Hiroki Otsu. No.18 TEAM UPGARAGE and No.55 AUTOBACS RACING TEAM AGURI are changing to Honda NSX GT3. Kosuke Matsuura will drive No.34 car alongside Takashi Kobayashi. No.55 car will add GT rookie Nirei Fukuzumi to join Shinichi Takagi. Honda will support these three cars as their customer team. There was an announcement on No.777 CARGUY Racing which revealed that the team is working on to stay in the series.

 

 

ARTA is changing its GT300 race car to NSX GT3 and adding GT rookie Fukuzumi.

 

 

　ARTA held a session to announce their team plan at the booth of AUTOBACS Group. Despite capturing two wins each in GT500 and GT300, ARTA fell short at third and second in the point ranking, respectively, last year, but, on the other hand, the speed its GT500 squad was showing with two wins and three pole positions in eight races was enough to keep the Nojiri / Izawa duo. Contrastingly, ARTA's GT300 team went through a drastic change. The team is switching its racing car to NSX GT3 and chose GT rookie Fukuzumi to partner with GT300 winningest driver Takagi.

As the comments by their drivers indicate, "We will aim for three wins this year since two wins were not enough to become a champion" by Izawa and "We will clinch the title one race before (the final round) at Autopolis this year, because we came so close and fell short of the title after fighting until the very end (last year)" by Takagi in GT300, ARTA will fight as one team to recapture the title in both classes.

 

 

TEAM UPGARAGE will also field a NSX GT3. apr is changing to PHV GR and adding Yuhki Nakayama.

 

 

 

UPGRAGE announced at its company booth that No.18 TEAM UPGARAGE is making the same move as ARTA to switch its race car to NSX GT3. Matsuura will be a new joinee to partner with Kobayashi in the driver lineup. Although Matsuura is senior to Kobayashi in terms of the relationship formed based on Honda's driver development program, which both are alumni of, the two appeared to be communicating frankly already, with probably Matsuura's friendly personality having an effect, at the presentation session.

apr drew attention by carrying out a shakedown of its new car with the old cowl on in December, but they finally unveiled their new racing car, Prius PHV GR. As for the driver lineup, No.30 car will have the same lineup of Hiroaki Nagai / Manabu Orido. On the other hand, No.31 car is welcoming Yuhki Nakayama, who became GT300 champion in hybrid CR-Z in 2013, as a partner of Koki Saga to take on the title contention.

　

 

 

Cars Tokai Dream28 and K-tunes Racing Team also revealed their plan.

 

 

 

No.2 Cars Tokai Dream28 had been the only team out of the mother-chassis users to field mid-engine layout Lotus EVORA MC, and the team confirmed that they will continue to compete with EVORA MC. No changes in the drivers with Kazuho Takahashi / Hiroki Katoh.

K-tunes Racing successfully became a member of top team club by scoring two wins last year despite being the debut season. The team will continue to aim for the title under the leadership of Team manager Masahiko Kageyama this season. Nonetheless, it is only confirmed currently that their ace driver Morio Nitta will remain with team and his partner will be announced soon. No change in the racing car as the team will continue with LEXUS RC F GT3.

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