GT300 Veteran Nitta Announces SUPER GT Retirement

Photo: SUPER GT

Three-time GT300 class champion Morio Nitta has announced he will conclude a three-decade stint as a SUPER GT driver at end of the season.

Nitta, 59, revealed the news on Wednesday ahead of this weekend’s season-closing double-header at Motegi, coming not long after he scored his first victory for seven years in last month’s Autopolis round alongside K-tunes Racing co-driver Shinichi Takagi.

It brings to a close an unbroken tenure in the Japanese sports car racing series that stretches back to 1996, the year in which he won the first of his three titles.

Notably, Nitta has spent his entire 30-year career in SUPER GT in the GT300 division, winning further championships in 1999 and 2002.

“At the end of this season, I, Morio Nitta, will be drawing a line under my journey as a SUPER GT driver,” wrote Nitta in a brief statement on social media.

“‘Persistence pays off” are words that have always been close to my heart since I was young. I believe the fact I have been able to continue driving for this long is not down to my own strength, but down to those around me who have allowed me to continue.

“To everyone in the team, the mechanics, the sponsors, and all the rivals I have fought against, and all the fans, thank you very much.

“I will give it my everything in the last two races of the season at Motegi. I want to have fun together with everyone until the very last lap, so please support me until the end.”

Nitta’s first title came in his debut season in 1996 sharing a Team Taisan Porsche 911 RSR with Keiichi Suzuki, but it was in 1999 that he formed an enduring partnership with current co-driver Takagi driving for the A’PEX (now apr) Toyota squad.

He would win the title solo that year as Takagi didn’t join until the second round, but the pair shared honors three years later for the same team, and remained co-drivers all the way through the 2010 season.

When apr and ARTA went their separate ways in 2011, Nitta stuck with apr for a further four seasons before switching to the Inging-run squad LM Corsa in 2015, which eventually led him to joining his current team, K-tunes, in 2018.

Sharing the squad’s Lexus RC F GT3 in 2019 with Sena Sakaguchi, Nitta finished runner-up in the GT300 standings, his best ranking since his final year at ARTA with Takagi in 2010, before the Okayama Toyopet-owned team went fully independent in 2020.

He was reunited with Takagi in 2022 when his long-time co-driver joined the team, but the pair had only scored a single podium finish, also at Autopolis in 2024, before reaching the top step of the podium at the same track last month.

It marked Nitta’s 23rd victory in the GT300 class, extending his record as the driver with most wins in the division, one ahead of Takagi.

Two-time GT300 Champion Orido Set for Final Hurrah at Motegi

News of Nitta’s retirement follows that of another GT300 class champion, Manabu Orido, who also announced his plans to step down from active driving duties late last month.

Orido, 57, is a two-time GT300 champion in 1997 and 2009, both with the Racing Project Bandoh team. However, unlike Nitta, he did enjoy a spell in the senior GT500 class between 2000 and 2007, scoring two victories in that time with Toyota.

He has been a fixture of the apr team since 2018, and has been part of the driver lineup for the team’s No. 30 Toyota GR86 GT since 2022, but stepped down to a third driver role this year in support of Hibiki Taira and gentleman driver Hiroaki Nagai.

However, Orido will take part in the two season-closing Motegi races in the No. 30 car alongside Taira, with Nagai stepping down for the weekend.

Orido has been associated with Yokohama tires for the majority of his career, and his retirement comes as the brand prepares to withdraw from SUPER GT as the championship switching to one-make tires for the 2027 campaign.

Source: Sports Car 365