Nissan breaks Super GT win drought in Motegi Race 1

After staring down the humiliating prospect of a winless season in GT500, Nissan finally prevailed in Mobility Resort Motegi as the No. 12 Team Impul Nissan Z NISMO GT500 of Kazuki Hiramine and Bertrand Baguette won Saturday’s first race of the Autobacs Super GT Series’ doubleheader finale.

The blue Impul Nissan started sixth on the grid. Polesitter Igor Fraga in the No. 64 Nakajima Racing Honda HRC Prelude-GT led the opening stint. Baguette gained a position on the opening lap, but an early safety car intervention kept the Belgian driver from making much progress early on.

Team Impul’s chances of victory improved, however, once Hiramine got in the car after a pit stop on lap 21. Hiramine fought his way from fifth past the Toyotas of Sacha Fenestraz and Kazuya Oshima, and was running second when he caught the No. 64 Honda, now driven by Riki Okusa. Hiramine dove up the inside at turn one to grab the lead, never to be challenged thereafter as the No. 12 Nissan won by over 20 seconds.

This was Team Impul's first win since August 2022 at Suzuka Circuit, the same year that Hiramine and Baguette went on to win the GT500 championship. And there were many relieved faces in the Nissan camp after the victory prevented what could have been the manufacturer’s first winless GT500 season since 2002.

“It feels amazing – just the best possible!” Hiramine exclaimed, after taking his third career win. “We have had a string of tough races lately, and since this was the final event of the year, I really wanted to showcase the kind of sharp, incisive driving that defines the Impul team. I’ve been putting myself through some grueling training, and seeing it finally pay off has really driven home to me the importance of hard work. I’m truly grateful to all our sponsors and everyone on the team.”

“The early stages of the race were quite tough,” admitted Baguette, who scored his sixth career win. “At the previous round at Autopolis, we didn’t win – partly due to the misfortune of getting held up by other cars during the qualifying – but this time, Nissan and Bridgestone provided us with a great car and excellent tires, which I believe is what led us to this victory.”

What would have been a hard-fought second-place run for the No. 14 Rookie Racing Toyota GR Supra GT500 (Nirei Fukuzumi/Kazuya Oshima) was struck from the records: The No. 14 Toyota failed post-race technical inspection due to excessive skid block wear, and was disqualified.

This promoted the No. 64 Honda of Okusa and Fraga to second place, after finishing third on the road. The Dunlop-shod Honda had slipped off the podium at one point, however, Okusa overtook the No. 8 Team HRC ARTA Mugen Honda of Kakunoshin Ohta with four laps to go – securing Nakajima Racing’s first podium of the season, and Fraga’s first career GT500 podium.

Ohta and Hiroki Otsu finished third in the revised classification, while the No. 39 TGR Team SARD Toyota (Yuhi Sekiguchi/Sacha Fenestraz) held on to fourth place. Both cars took big risks with their strategy to gain track position – the No. 8 Honda pitted late and changed only the left-front tire, while the No. 39 Toyota took no tires on its stop.

Thanks to Fenestraz’s bold driving in the final laps, the No. 39 Toyota held off the No. 100 Team Kunimitsu Honda of Tadasuke Makino by less than two-tenths of a second at the finish. But fifth place for Makino and Naoki Yamamoto was enough for the Team Kunimitsu drivers to take the lead in the GT500 Drivers’ championship for the first time this year, as the No. 36 TGR Team TOM’S Toyota (Sho Tsuboi/Kenta Yamashita) had a lackluster showing in 10th.

The No. 17 Real Racing Honda (Koudai Tsukakoshi/Yuto Nomura) charged from the back of the grid to finish sixth and save their championship hopes heading into Sunday’s race, which will be run with no Success Ballast.

Six GT500 teams are still mathematically eligible for the title, though that number could be cut down to as low as four after qualifying on Sunday morning. Yamamoto and Makino now lead the GT500 standings by two points over defending champions Tsuboi/Yamashita, with Tsukakoshi/Nomura (-14) in third. Hiramine and Baguette jumped from 12th to fourth in the standings (-18) with their victory today.

In fifth and sixth are the pairings of Ohta/Otsu (-19) and Sekiguchi/Fenestraz (-20), but both are at risk of being eliminated from contention depending on the results of Sunday qualifying if the No. 100 Honda takes pole.

With just two more races together, K-tunes Racing’s Morio Nitta and Shinichi Takagi drove their No. 96 K-tunes Racing Lexus RC F GT3 to its second consecutive victory of the season, following up their incredible Autopolis 3 Hour Race win with an equally impressive win in Motegi.

In his 250th and penultimate Super GT race before retirement, Nitta was one of the first GT300 front-runners to pit for routine service. K-tunes Racing elected to take fuel only, no tires, and co-driver Takagi came out in net second place.

Takagi would take the net lead after passing the No. 666 Seven x Seven Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R of Sven Müller a little after half-distance which became the true lead once all GT300 cars made their routine pit stops. He would drive on, undisturbed, to the victory by a final margin of 12.393s.

Remarkably, Nitta and Takagi’s back-to-back wins have put GT300’s “Golden Duo“ – with an average age of 57 – in the hunt for a once-unthinkable championship run. Points leaders João Paulo de Oliveira and Iori Kimura in the No. 56 Kondo Racing Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 finished 14th after taking penalties for pit lane speeding and avoidable contact.

Nitta, who extended his all-time record with his 24th career GT300 class win, said, “I had said that I would retire from Super GT racing after this year… well, what should I do now? Maybe I shouldn’t retire after all, but I might have to rethink that now!

“The tires were fantastic, and thanks to the team preparing the car perfectly, I was able to maintain a strong pace from the very start. We also got a bit lucky, as our rivals ran into some trouble. In the second half, Shinichi did his job perfectly, as he always does. I didn’t expect to win again, so this is just incredible!”

Takagi, who took his 23rd career victory, added, “After taking the lead in the second half, I kept checking in over the team radio to monitor the pace of the cars behind me, and all the while I was managing my tires to avoid excessive wear. But, you know, when you win back-to-back, it’s hard to shed any tears – especially because in the next race, our only option is to become the champions. Maybe then I can get Nitta-san to take back that whole “thing“ he said about retiring!”

After both cars were disqualified from Autopolis, the No. 666 Porsche of Müller and Taichi Watarai, and the No. 88 JLOC Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2 (Takashi Kogure/Daniil Kvyat) got to keep their second and third-place trophies this time, separated by less than half a second over the line.

Ironically, they were promoted from third and fourth after the No. 26 Anest Iwata Racing Nissan Fairlady Z (Hironobu Yasuda/Yusuke Mitsui) was disqualified for a maximum boost pressure violation, taking away what would have been a terrific second-place finish.

Rounding out the top-six were the No. 45 Ponos Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo (Takuro Shinohara/Shintaro Kawabata, the No. 20 Shade Racing Lexus RC F GT3 (Katsuyuki Hiranaka/Eijiro Shimizu), and the No. 11 Gainer Nissan Fairlady Z (Ryuichiro Tomita/Kazuki Oki). The No. 11 Nissan led early, but was given a drive-through penalty for a Safety Car restart procedure violation.

Müller’s runner-up finish puts him third in the GT300 Drivers’ championship (-13), ahead of the No. 2 Inging Motorsport Toyota GR86 (Yuui Tsutsumi/Kazuhisa Urabe, -18) and the No. 65 LEON Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO (Naoya Gamou/Togo Suganami, -19). Both the No. 2 and No. 65 scored minor points today in 12th and 13th.

Four GT300 cars were taken out in a first-lap incident that began when Miki Koyama in the No. 31 apr Lexus LC500h got a poor start. Substitute driver Tsubasa Kondo in the No. 777 D’station Racing Aston Martin then went for a desperate lunge at turn three, then made contact with Koyama, and collected the No. 7 CarGuy MKS Racing Ferrari of Kiyoshi Umegaki. Further back, the No. 30 apr Toyota GR86 of Manabu Orido was also taken out in the chain reaction.

All four cars were taken out of the race and the safety car was deployed. Kondo’s co-driver Charlie Fagg was eliminated from championship contention, but Umegaki (-22) is still mathematically eligible, if only just, going into tomorrow’s finale.

The new GR GT3 Concept made a respectable showing in its much-anticipated global racing debut. Hiroaki Ishiura and Tokiya Suzuki finished 19th in the No. 32 Rookie Racing GR GT3 Concept, only one lap off the lead, and with no serious issues throughout the race.

Finally, the No. 22 R’Qs Motor Sports Mercedes-AMG (Masaki Kano/Masaki Jyonai) finished 21st – notable as this was Jyonai’s final Super GT race after a 29-year career which spanned from 1997 until the end of Saturday’s race.

RACER Network and RACER+ will have live coverage of the final round of the 2026 Autobacs Super GT Series, starting Saturday night at 11:50 p.m. ET / 8:50 p.m. PT, with Jonathan Green and RACER.com correspondent RJ O’Connell on commentary.