Season-High 25 Cars Set for Fuji Round

Photo: GT World Challenge Asia

The third round of the GT World Challenge Asia powered by AWS season at Fuji Speedway will be contested by a season-high 25 cars, including multiple guest entries.

The SRO Motorsports Group-operated series returns to action at the Toyota-owned venue this weekend for the first of back-to-back events in Japan after an extended break following the rescheduling of June’s Shanghai round until the end of the year.

A final entry list for the two 60-minute races was released on Monday, featuring an increase of three cars compared to the previous round at Mandalika in early May and two cars compared to April’s Sepang curtain-raiser.

Three guest entries are supplied by Absolute Racing, which will field two extra Porsche 911 GT3 R Evos.

These are the No. 20 car for Malaysian pair Aaron Lim Say Joon and Haziq Zairel Oh in the Am class, and the No. 32 car for Porsche Motorsport North America Selected Driver Tom Sargent and Kyle Washington in Silver-Am.

Audi will gain an additional representative as Thierry Vermeulen and Andy Tan, who campaigned a Ferrari 296 GT3 under the Absolute Corse banner at Sepang, will instead now pilot an Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II with the same branding.

Additionally, LM Corsa is making its first outing of the season with its Ferrari 296 GT3, to be shared by Japanese duo Ryo Ogawa and Shigekazu Wakisaka.

As well as the extra entries, there are also several driver changes of note for Fuji.

Team KRC’s No. 89 BMW M4 GT3 EVO will have its third different Pro driver in as many races as Max Hesse comes on board alongside ‘Tony’ Ruan Cunfan, after Neil Verhagen raced at Sepang and Jesse Krohn filled in for the American at Mandalika.

Craft-Bamboo Racing has recruited FIA Bronze-rated Daisuke Yamawaki to share its solo Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo with Liang Jiatong, while Harmony Racing’s Silver class No. 96 Ferrari features Chen Weian replacing Deng Yi.

Elsewhere, Origine Motorsport’s No. 4 Porsche has been renumbered to No. 11 for Fuji as Laurin Heinrich makes his first outing of the season alongside Lu Wei, who was flanked by Alessio Picariello for the opening weekends of 2026.

While a provisional entry list released last month featured 26 cars, the No. 918 Absolute Porsche has been scratched as Vutthikorn Inthraphuvasak recovers from injury.

Bastian Buus had been due to compete in the car after skipping the Mandalika round.

Complementing the 25-car GTWC Asia field is a Japan Cup grid made up of 16 entries, including 13 GT3s, the same number as the Sugo opener in May.

Two new GT3 entries since the Sugo round are a Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo for Team DreamDrive, for Am pair Takashi Sano and Takuya Shirasaka, and a Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 for Galah Racing, shared by SUPER GT regular Natsu Sakaguchi and ‘Galah’.

Tomei Sports’ RunUp-branded GT-R is absent, while the Maezawa Racing Ferrari was a last-minute dropout due to business commitments for Yusaku Maezawa.

Source: Sports Car 365