IMSA, IndyCar stars suit up for a milestone Suzuka 1000km

Before next week’s Battle on the Bricks at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, some of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship’s top stars have taken a long detour across the Pacific Ocean to another of the world’s greatest racetracks: Suzuka Circuit.

Since 1966, it’s been the host of Japan’s oldest endurance sports car race, the Suzuka 1000KM. A staple of the late summer in Japanese motorsport, in years past, the 1000km has been a showcase event for Super GT, the FIA GT Championship, the All Japan Sports Prototype Championship, and even once in the FIA World Sportswear Championship.

As part of the SRO Intercontinental GT Challenge since 2018, the milestone 50th running of the Suzuka 1000KM will see 30 GT3 cars racing for six and a half hours around one of motorsport’s most challenging courses.

Headlining that 30-car entry is a nine-car Pro class field, which features several top drivers from IMSA and even one of its most famous teams.

That famous team is AO Racing, which has partnered with Chinese-based Absolute Racing to enter the No. 8 Porsche 911 GT3 R for 2026 Rolex 24 At Daytona and Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring overall/GTP winners, Julien Andlauer and Laurin Heinrich. The two Porsche Penske Motorsport stars are joined by current AO Racing GTD Pro endurance driver Alessio Picariello.

All three have driven the iconic “Rexy” in IMSA over the past few years, most notably Heinrich. The German driver won the 2024 IMSA GTD Pro championship with AO, and now sits second in the IMSA GTP championship standings. For this special occasion, AO Racing has introduced yet another character to its growing universe of racing Kaiju: “Bushi Rex”, the legendary samurai ancestor of Rexy.

Sunday’s race will also be the stage of a fresh take on the long-running Chevrolet versus Ford rivalry as a Corvette Z06 GT3.R and Mustang GT3 Evo have entered in the Pro class.

Corvette Racing drivers Alexander Sims and Nicky Catsburg will once again partner NTT IndyCar Series star and three-time Australian Supercars Champion Scott McLaughlin in the No. 2 Johor Motorsports Racing (JMR) Corvette. The trio finished third overall in last year’s long-awaited revival of the Suzuka 1000KM, following a six-year shutdown due to COVID-19.

Since then, Sims went on to win the 2025 IMSA GTD Pro championship for Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports, while 2026 Le Mans LMGT3 class winner Catsburg is in contention to win this year’s GTD Pro title. McLaughlin is coming off a win in the IndyCar season finale at Laguna Seca, which snapped a two-year winless drought for the New Zealand-born driver.

Australian teams Miedecke Motorsport and Melbourne Performance Centre (MPC) have teamed up to enter the No. 64 Ford Mustang for factory GT3 drivers Christopher Mies, Dennis Olsen, and Frédéric Vervisch. These drivers won GTD Pro at the 2025 Rolex 24 At Daytona, and gave the Mustang GT3 its first-ever victory in global competition – the first of many more across North America and Europe.

Vervisch is one of three previous overall winners of the Suzuka 1000KM in this year’s field. The Belgian joins two-time Super GT GT500 and Super Formula champion Tsugio Matsuda and Shigekazu Wakisaka, the younger brother of three-time GT500 champion Juichi.

Winward Racing’s two-time and reigning IMSA GTD champion Philip Ellis has joined Kenny Habul’s 75 Express team in one of two Pro class Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVOs, and in the other, part-time Acura Meyer Shank Racing driver Kakunoshin “Kaku” Ohta will drive the No. 77 Mercedes-AMG for celebrated Hong Kong squad Craft-Bamboo Racing.

BMW M factory drivers Max Hesse and Dan Harper, who helped Paul Miller Racing take GTD Pro class victory in this year’s Rolex 24 At Daytona, will each be in customer M4 GT3 EVOs competing in the 14-car Bronze class. Hesse joins rapid-rising Chinese squad Team KRC in the No. 89, while Harper and Bryan Herta Autosport with PR1/Mathiasen LMP2 driver Parker Thompson will share driving duties in the No. 69 Team WRT BMW.

Team WRT won last year’s Suzuka 1000KM in dominant fashion, but with BMW forgoing a factory-supported program this year in favor of supporting privateers at Suzuka and the Indy 8 Hour, it’s almost certain that a new team will win this year’s race.

Also of note in the Bronze class is Cadillac Whelen (Action Express Racing) driver Earl Bamber, whose eponymous racing team has entered a Porsche 911 GT3 R in the Bronze class. The No. 61 Earl Bamber Motorsport Porsche is headlined by the reigning IMSA GTP champion, Mathieu Jaminet. Even after leaving Porsche Penske Motorsport and IMSA for Genesis Magma Racing and the FIA WEC, Jaminet continues to drive Porsche GT3 cars in select races.

The 50th Suzuka 1000KM starts Sunday, September 13th at 11:50 p.m. ET/8:50 p.m. PT, airing live on the SRO GT World YouTube channel.