Oyu and Kobayashi lead Toyota top three lockout in Super GT Okayama qualifying

Toyota teams locked out the top three grid positions in qualifying for the opening round of the 2026 Autobacs Super GT Series at Okayama International Circuit.

The No. 38 TGR Team Cerumo Toyota GR Supra of Toshiki Oyu and Rikuto Kobayashi will start on pole for Sunday’s 82-lap race at Okayama. Tomorrow’s race marks the premiere of Super GT on RACER Network and RACER+, broadcasting live in the United States and Canada starting at 12:09am ET.

In Saturday’s two-stage knockout qualifying session, GT500 rookie Kobayashi timed in third-fastest in Q1 behind session leader Kenta Yamashita for TGR Team TOM’S. His co-driver Oyu would go on to take the pole in the final seconds of Q2, setting a 1m17.352s around the 3.7-kilometer Okayama circuit.

That was enough to edge ahead of the No. 36 TOM’S Toyota of defending GT500 champions Sho Tsuboi and Kenta Yamashita, who qualified second, followed by the No. 14 Rookie Racing Toyota (Nirei Fukuzumi/Kazuya Oshima) in third. The top three Toyotas were covered by only 0.129s at the end of Q2, and the No. 39 SARD Toyota (Yuhi Sekiguchi/Sacha Fenestraz), the fastest car in the morning’s practice session, made it four GR Supras in the top five grid positions for tomorrow’s race.

The top-qualifying Honda was the No. 17 Real Racing HRC Prelude-GT of Koudai Tsukakoshi and Yuto Nomura, which qualified fourth; the No. 16 ARTA Mugen Honda and No. 100 Team Kunimitsu Honda also made it through to Q2, qualifying sixth and eighth respectively.

But Honda also produced the biggest shock of Q1 after the No. 8 ARTA Mugen Prelude-GT crashed out of the session; Hiroki Otsu was uninjured after a head-on collision with the tire barrier near turn 11, but he and co-driver Kakunoshin Ohta will have to start tomorrow’s race from the rear of the GT500 field in 14th.

The “sonic” blue No. 12 Team Impul Nissan Z NISMO GT500 of Kazuki Hiramine and Bertrand Baguette qualified seventh to lead the three-car Nissan brigade in GT500.

In GT300, former WEC challenger D’station Racing’s No. 777 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo driven by Tomonobu Fujii and Charlie Fagg stormed to pole position.

In the first of two Q1 groups, Fagg recorded the fastest time, sending veteran co-driver Fujii through to Q2 with ease. Fujii would put up a 1m24.561s to win the pole, coming within three-tenths of the GT300 qualifying lap record.

Behind it was the No. 2 INGING Toyota GR86 (Yuui Tsutsumi/Kazuhisa Urabe) which qualified second after leading the way during practice. The black Toyota moved up a place on the grid after the No. 31 apr Lexus LC500h (Kazuto Kotaka/Miki Koyama) had its best time in Q2 deleted due to a track limits violation. Had it not been for that error by Kotaka in Q2, he and Koyama would have started on the front row in GT300.

The No. 6 Velorex Ferrari 296 GT3 (Yoshiaki Katayama/Niklas Krütten) – a car running without the latest Evo kit – was able to qualify fourth, followed by the No. 4 Goodsmile Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO (Nobuteru Taniguchi/Tatsuya Kataoka), and the No. 60 LM corsa Lexus LC500 (Hiroki Yoshimoto/Shunsuke Kohno).

Rounding out the top-10 grid spots are the No. 52 Saitama Green Brave Toyota GR Supra, the No. 56 Kondo Racing Nissan GT-R, the No. 96 K-tunes Racing Lexus RC F GT3, and the No. 11 Gainer Nissan Fairlady Z, to make it nine unique different vehicle models inside the top ten in GT300 Q2.

Further down the grid, reigning champions Naoya Gamou and Togo Suganami will start 11th in the No. 65 Leon Racing Mercedes-AMG, three places ahead of the No. 88 JLOC Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2; Daniil Kvyat could only manage 14th fastest out of 18 cars in Q2, timing in behind IndyCar alumni Kosuke Matsuura in the sister No. 87 Lamborghini.

Running with a new six-cylinder boxer engine, the No. 61 R&D Sport Subaru BRZ qualified a disappointing 25th after missing Q2 completely, and the No. 20 Shade Racing RC F GT3 will start towards the rear after suffering from an ECU problem in Q1.

All seven races will be live on RACER Network and on the RACER+ App, beginning with the Okayama season opener this weekend. Live coverage begins at 12:09am ET on Sunday, April 12 on Saturday, April 11.

GT500 RESULTS

GT300 RESULTS