Super GT returns this weekend at Suzuka

The Autobacs Super GT Series visits Suzuka Circuit this weekend for a 300-kilometer sprint race that marks the halfway point of the 2026 season.
As Sunday’s race approaches, Honda rolls in off the back of its first GT500 victory for the new HRC Prelude-GT at Fuji, Toyota still has a firm grasp with four cars in the top five positions in the GT500 Championship, while Nissan will hope to replicate recent success at Suzuka after a nightmare race at Fuji.

The RACER+ App will carry live, exclusive coverage of Sunday’s race across the U.S. and Canada, starting Sunday at 12:00am ET. Speed City Broadcasting’s Jonathan Green will be joined by RACER's Super GT & IMSA correspondent RJ O’Connell for English-language commentary of the fourth race of the season.

Honda came out of the abnormally long summer break rejuvenated as its Prelude-GTs finished 1-2 at the Fuji 300km earlier this month, led by the No. 100 Team Kunimitsu Honda of Naoki Yamamoto and Tadasuke Makino, who won the race ahead of the No. 8 Team HRC ARTA Mugen car of Kakunoshin Ohta and Hiroki Otsu.

After that race, Honda Racing Corporation GT500 Project Leader Tomohiro Onishi said, “During the nearly three-month break, we reviewed areas that we would not normally have time to address in the usual schedule, determined to do everything possible before Round 4. The winning No. 100 was able to run at the front throughout, helped by its tire choice matching the conditions, although it struggled for pace towards the end and ultimately finished only narrowly ahead of No. 8.

“The two cars pursued victory with different strategies, including their tire choices, so I am very pleased that they ultimately secured a one-two finish. It was the result of a solid race execution, including the pit work. However, the Success Weight also worked in our favour in Round 4. We will make full use of the data gathered this time as we prepare for the coming rounds.”

Yamamoto and Makino’s victory propelled them to third in the GT500 championship standings, and although the No. 100 car is saddled with 54 kilograms of Success Weight (applied as 50 kg of ballast and reduced engine fuel flow rate), Honda’s four other challengers are still in a good position with the No. 8 up to only 32 kg of Success Weight, and all others with less than 30.

This includes the No. 64 Nakajima Racing Honda which was taken out in a spectacular crash down the main straightaway at Fuji just a little over two weeks ago. Igor Fraga escaped uninjured after his car flipped over and landed driver-side first onto the track, narrowly avoiding the overhead signboard gantry when airborne.

A week later, Fraga was back behind the wheel in Super Formula, seemingly on course to win at Sportsland Sugo before an unusual sequence of events during a safety car intervention left the Brazilian-Japanese driver fuming as he had to settle for third place. Fraga and co-driver Riki Okusa haven’t scored points in the first three races, but the only Dunlop-clad GT500 car in the field is in a good position to at least get its first points at Suzuka, if not more.

The two cars that set off Fraga’s big crash at Fuji were both Nissans, and all three of the Nissan Z NISMO GT500s failed to score points. But NISMO’s Katsumasa Chiyo and Mitsunori Takaboshi won the Suzuka 300km last year, and should be one of the favorites to go back-to-back in the red No. 23 Nissan Z.

The No. 36 TGR Team TOM’S Toyota GR Supra of Sho Tsuboi and Kenta Yamashita still leads the GT500 standings, now 20 points ahead after a fourth-place run at Fuji which left some to question the effectiveness of its Success Refueling Restrictor. Tsuboi and Yamashita’s excellent driving was aided by a rapid pit stop that appeared to have no signs of a projected 10-second refueling time penalty. They’ll now have an even smaller restrictor in the fuel hose this week which should, in theory, add 15 seconds to their pit stop time.

In contrast to the massive gap between first and second in the GT500 points table, the GT300 standings are extremely close going into Suzuka, with the top six teams covered by just six points.

A win at Fuji put the No. 52 Saitama Green Brave Toyota GR Supra (Hiroki Yoshida/Seita Nonaka) on top, overtaking the No. 2 Inging Motorsport Toyota GR86 (Yuui Tsutsumi/Kazuhisa Urabe) on countback. Behind them, the No. 56 Kondo Racing Nissan GT-R, No. 65 Leon Racing Mercedes-AMG, No. 777 D’station Racing Aston Martin, and No. 31 apr Lexus LC500h are all within that six-point range as well.

Last year, CarGuy MKS Racing’s No. 7 Ferrari 296 GT3 won at Suzuka. Zak O’Sullivan returns as the defending race winner, now a hot commodity in Formula E’s rumor mill. His co-driver, Toyota-supported 18-year-old Kiyoshi Umegaki, is also one to watch – Umegaki scored his first GT300 podium last race.

The car that finished second at Suzuka last year, the No. 61 R&D Sport Subaru BRZ, has another chance to turn around what’s been a miserable start to the season; the new flat-six engine in the BRZ hasn’t been a pain point this year, but other assorted troubles have kept Takuto Iguchi and Hideki Yamauchi with only one point scored this year. Suzuka’s abundance of medium and high-speed corners should benefit the BRZ, one of the many GTA-GT300 regulation cars that excels in cornering.

Only one GT300 entry has changed drivers this weekend: Tomei Sports has put Yu Kanamaru back in its No. 360 Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3, one of a handful of cars still looking for its first points-paying finish of the year.