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Photo: Masahide Kamio Toyota driver Hiroaki Ishiura believes that the value of giving the GR GT3 an early race debut in concept form in this weekend’s Motegi SUPER GT finale has already made itself clear as early as Friday’s opening practice session. Rookie Racing will become the first team to race Toyota’s new GT3 weapon that is set to be rolled out in various championships worldwide next season, running the car in ‘concept’ form in place of the Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo it has used until now. Because the car is considered an ‘open’ entry, it means Ishiura and co-driver Tokiya Suzuki are not eligible to score drivers’ points in either of the 250km races. Ishiura, who has been one of the GR GT3’s main development drivers through its long gestation period, set the car’s fastest time of 1:49.638 as the car completed 30 laps in Friday morning’s sole, unofficial practice session of the weekend. That put it 28th and last in th...

Photo: Charly Lopez/DPPI ***The FIA World Endurance Championship has returned to Autodromo Nazionale Monza for the first time in three years, as a replacement round for the season-ending 8 Hours of Bahrain due to continued geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. It marks the WEC’s fourth race appearance at Monza, which appeared on the calendar from 2021-23 and also hosted the pre-season Prologue in 2017. ***The No. 7 Toyota entry of Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and Jose Maria Lopez won on two of the three occasions, with the 2022 race having gone to the ORECA-chassied, Alpine-badged LMP1 car with Nico Lapierre, Andre Negrao and Matthieu Vaxiviere at the wheel. ***With Toyota Racing having already clinched the Hypercar manufacturers’ world championship last time out in Barcelona, and only the Nos. 7 and 8 Toyota TR010 Hybrids in contention for the drivers’ championship, Toyota’s David Floury told reporters there will be no team orders between the two cars. T...

Photo: John Dagys The No. 32 WRT BMW M4 GT3 EVO is sporting a special Alex Zanardi tribute livery in this weekend’s FIA World Endurance Championship season-ending 6 Hours of Monza, an idea spawned from Zanardi’s longtime friend and competitor Augusto Farfus. The LMGT3 entry sports an eye-catching design, created by Vanuf Art Design, depicting the Italian’s face and a mural of his Dallara-built hand-cycle that took him to four Paralympic gold medals. Zanardi, who lost both of his legs in a devastating crash in the CART race at the Lausitzring in 2001 and came back to race in touring car and GT competition with BMW, passed away in May at the age of 59 following complications of a hand-cycling accident in 2020. “Augusto came up with the idea when we heard that we were going to race in Monza to do a tribute to Alex,” explained the team’s FIA Bronze-rated driver Darren Leung. “I confess I didn’t know too much about his background, but whe...

Photo: Julien Delfosse/DPPI FIA World Endurance Championship points leader Ryo Hirakawa says there were discussions about him missing the Monza finale to instead race in Formula 1 in Brazil, before Haas opted to field Rafael Camara instead. Hirakawa made an unexpected F1 race debut in Mexico last weekend when Haas split with driver Esteban Ocon following an argument with the team during Friday practice. Toyota racer Hirakawa — who was in contention to replace Ocon at Haas full-time next year before FIA Formula 2 points leader Camara got the nod instead — was in Mexico to drive the Haas VF-26 in FP1 and then got the surprise promotion to the race seat, going on to score a point for finishing tenth after post-race penalties were applied. With Haas since confirming that Ocon would not drive for the team for the rest of the year, there was the potential for Hirakawa to continue for this weekend’s Sao Paulo Grand Prix before it was decided that Camara would make his F1 debut at h...

Photo: SUPER GT CarGuy MKS Racing has explained why it called on Ritomo Miyata for this weekend’s SUPER GT finale at Motegi, saying it felt it needed to sign a replacement driver of the same caliber as the absent Zak O’Sullivan to maximize its championship chances. The second-year squad lies second in the GT300 teams’ standings ahead of the title-deciding double-header, with O’Sullivan a solo second in the drivers’ race, 17 points behind Kondo Racing Nissan pair Joao Paulo de Oliveira and Iori Kimura. However, with the British driver electing to skip Motegi as he prepares for his upcoming Formula E commitments, 2023 GT500 champion Miyata has been recruited to partner Kiyoshi Umegaki in the team’s No. 7 Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo. Team director Misato Haga said that the arrival of Miyata, who has spent the last two years racing exclusively in FIA Formula 2, has given the team fresh motivation as it aims to overturn Umegaki’s 20-point deficit in the ...

Source: Sports Car 365

Image: HMI Hanley Motorsports Incorporated will launch a dual-series IMSA campaign next year, utilizing race and championship-winning resources and experience for its multi-faceted BMW program. Announced on Wednesday, HMI, which has joined forces with DXDT Racing and will also work with ex-Paul Miller Racing staff, including its longtime team boss Mitchell Simmons, who will serve as team principal. Additionally, DXDT program manager Bryan Sellers has been named competition director for the program, which will see BMW M4 GT3 EVOs entered in both the GTD Pro and GTD classes of the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, as well as GS class effort with at least one BMW M4 GT4 EVO in Michelin Pilot Challenge. Drivers for the programs have yet to be announced. The GTD Pro effort effectively takes over from Paul Miller Racing’s championship-winning campaign from this year, and the team will be initially based out of the former PMR shop in Buford, Ga., before moving to a new ground-up ...