Nissan, Honda and Toyota’s GT500 line-ups

Nissan

On Thursday, Nissan announced a major overhaul of its line-up, ending the decade-long partnership between Ronnie Quintarelli and Tsugio Matsuda.

While Quintarelli will continue to pilot the flagship #23 NISMO entry, as he has done since 2013, Matsuda will move across to Kondo Racing alongside GT500 newcomer Teppei Natori. Quintarelli will have a new team-mate in form of Katsumasa Chiyo, who has spent the last four seasons at NDDP.

Chiyo’s move to the #23 NISMO has paved the way for Atsushi Miyake to step up to SUPER GT’s top class after racing in GT300 last year with Max Racing. Miyake will compete in both of Japan’s top championships this year, having been recently announced as ThreeBond Racing’s sole driver for the 2024 Super Formula season.

Team Impul is the only Nissan team to retain its driver line-up, with 2022 champions Kazuki Hiramine and Bertrand Baguette staying on for another year.

Nissan also announced that both NDDP and NISMO Z cars will switch to Bridgestone tyres following Michelin’s exit from the series.

Honda

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

Firstly, Nobuharu Matsushita will leave Real Racing to join the #8 ARTA, where he will team up with Tomoki Nojiri.

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

Two new drivers will join the make their GT500 debuts with Honda, Riki Okusa and Ren Sato. Okusa makes the switch from Nissan’s GT300 roster to partner Takuya Izawa at Nakajima, while Sato will join Hiroki Otsu in the #16 ARTA. Sato last competed in SUPER GT with ARTA’s GT300 team in 2021 and has spent the last two seasons racing in Super Formula.

As expected, Honda has retained Naoki Yamamoto and Tadasuke Makino at Kunimitsu, with Yamamoto now fit to return to racing following a terrifying crash at Sugo last year.

Toyota

Two drivers will leave Honda to join Toyota’s GT500 roster in SUPER GT, Nirei Fukuzumi and Toshiki Oyu.

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

Oyu, meanwhile, will join Hiroki Ishiura at Cerumo to replace the retired Yuji Tachikawa. Apart from Tachikawa, another leading driver to leave SUPER GT is last year’s champion Ritomo Miyata, who will undertake a dual programme in Formula 2 and the European Le Mans Series in 2024.

All three other Toyota cars will continue with unchanged drivers.

SUPER GT 2024 GT500 entry list: