2019 Super GT GT500 Preview: Part 3, Honda

Five years ago, Honda entered the new era of GT500 racing full of promise with the return of their legendary mid-engined supercar, the Honda NSX. The tricky NSX Concept-GT was the only mid-engined car in GT500, built on the platform that would eventually form the basis of Class One, never intended for mid-engined machines. Their hybrid powertrain showed potential, but after two seasons, it was dropped citing the excess weight that it added.

They’d hoped that the lighter 2016 model would bring success, but instead, that change exposed Honda’s massive power deficit to the likes of Lexus (Toyota) and Nissan, and severe fundamental flaws with the chassis. As Honda were in the middle of a difficult return to Formula 1 with McLaren, 2016 saw their GT500 programme hit rock bottom. For the first time since 1997, Honda failed to win a race in the premier class of the Autobacs Super GT Series, and their five cars occupied the bottom five places in the championship at season’s end.

The introduction of the redesigned NSX-GT in 2017, based on the new production model, gave Honda fans hope for a turnaround. But when four of the five cars broke down five laps into the opening race of the season at Okayama, the despair came back. Many questioned if Honda would ever succeed with a mid-engined GT500 car. But midway through the season, there came a massive breakthrough in the engine department. Adapting the turbulent jet ignition methods pioneered in F1 to their GT500 engines, Honda bounced back with two victories in 2017.

And in 2018, that momentum kept up. Honda NSX-GTs won four races last year, and a whopping six pole positions in the GT500 class. Most importantly, Raybrig Team Kunimitsu took the GT500 Championships, giving Honda their first GT500 Championships since 2010 – and completing a 24-month turnaround from the struggles of a winless 2016 season to the successes of 2018. And Masashi Yamamoto, Honda’s chief of motorsport, quickly shot down any suggestions that the NSX-GT would abandon its mid-engined layout this off-season.

For 2019, Honda look to do something they’ve never successfully accomplished before, and defend their GT500 Championship titles this season. They had a quieter off-season than they did last winter, when 2009 Formula 1 World Champion Jenson Button was the marquee acquisition of 2018. Their testing form has been hard to read: None of the Hondas were near the top of the timesheets in either of the official pre-season tests at Okayama or Fuji. They’ve instead been logging laps, running race simulations, and testing different aero packages and tyre compounds to mixed results.

But from within their rivals at Lexus and Nissan, and elsewhere in the paddock, the belief is that Honda have deliberately played a conservative hand in testing, to the point that some drivers evoked the seven-letter “SB” word to describe it. But only time and the progression of the 2019 Autobacs Super GT Series to come will truly tell whether Honda are still the manufacturer to beat in GT500, or whether they have truly failed to take the necessary steps forward to keep pace with Lexus and Nissan.

Here’s how Honda will roll out in their 2019 title defense, beginning with the defending GT500 Champions.

#1 | Team Kunimitsu | Raybrig NSX-GT | Bridgestone | Naoki Yamamoto & Jenson Button

Since the very first season of the Autobacs Super GT Series, Team Kunimitsu have been a regular and beloved presence on the grid. Their world-famous Raybrig Honda NSX is one of the most popular cars in the series, and legendary team principal Kunimitsu Takahashi is one of the most celebrated and respected champions in motor racing.

But the GT500 Championship had eluded this proud team for twenty-four years. That was, until 2018, when the acquisition of 2009 Formula 1 World Champion Jenson Button to partner Honda factory racing ace Naoki Yamamoto put the rest of the GT500 paddock on notice. And on the strength of four podiums, including a pole-to-win victory at Sugo, the final podium finish – a third place at the championship finale at Twin Ring Motegi – sealed Team Kunimitsu’s very first GT500 Championships.

Now proudly carrying the champions’ number 1, Raybrig Team Kunimitsu are out to show that they have the staying power to win back-to-back GT500 titles – something that none of Hondas teams have ever accomplished. The storybook ending to 2018 is still fresh in the minds of many, but Kunimitsu-san, Naoki, and JB all know that 2019 brings new challenges, and that repeating as champions is never an easy task in a series specifically built around competitive parity.

30-year-old Naoki Yamamoto had the year of his life in 2018. The year that he and his wife Eri welcomed twin daughters to the world, Yamamoto became the first driver in 14 years to win both of Japan’s most coveted national racing titles in the same year: The GT500 Championship with Team Kunimitsu, and the Super Formula Championship with Team Mugen. Yamamoto has carried Honda through the struggles of recent past all the way back to the summit of a championship in Super GT.

And there’s nothing to suggest that an encore wouldn’t be in the works for Yamamoto. His teammate Button said he is a driver deserving of a place on the Formula 1 grid on his merit – yet he is still here, one of the superstars of Super GT, competing in his tenth GT500 season – and his eighth with the team that gave him his series debut in 2010, Team Kunimitsu.

After seventeen-plus seasons in Formula 1, 2018 saw the beginning of a new chapter in the racing life of Jenson Button. Button was instrumental in bringing in many new fans to Super GT this past season and shining a positive light on the series as a whole. And while it’d be easy to assume that his success would be a given because of his F1 background, Button will readily admit that 2018 was a learning year – both in Super GT and the LMP1 class of the WEC.

After becoming the first driver to win the GT500 titles in his debut Super GT season since 2005, a more confident Button is ready to assert himself as more of a team leader in 2019, re-upping his commitment to the series alongside his new TV gig with Sky Sports F1. We saw JB looking more like the JB of his F1 prime towards the end of 2018. It’s never an easy task, but with an improved JB and Naoki-san in the form of his life, how would anyone bet against Team Kunimitsu to win back-to-back GT500 Championships?

#8 | Autobacs Racing Team Aguri | ARTA NSX-GT | Bridgestone | Tomoki Nojiri & Takuya Izawa

From within the Honda camp is probably the biggest challenge to Team Kunimitsu’s bid for back-to-back GT500 titles. Another team led by a legendary Japanese racer – Autobacs Racing Team Aguri, ARTA for short, led by Aguri Suzuki. Like the Honda programme as a whole, ARTA are surging back to championship form over the last two seasons following some rough stretches which included back-to-back last place finishes in 2011 and 2012.

Last season, ARTA were the only GT500 team to score more than one victory, with wins at Honda-owned Suzuka Circuit and Twin Ring Motegi. They also racked up three pole positions, once again showing their prowess as the team to beat in Saturday time trials.

Under the leadership of Aguri Suzuki and Chief Engineer Satofumi Hoshi, ARTA are back to where they were for much of the first decade of the 21st century and during their historic 2007 Championship season: Perennial championship contenders proudly carrying the flag for Honda. Certainly, the new-look, orange and black gradient ARTA NSX-GT has caught a lot of eyes this off-season.

But while the livery is new, the driver lineup remains the same from 2018: Tomoki Nojiri and Takuya Izawa are back for their second season together. It’s Nojiri’s fifth GT500 campaign, all of them with ARTA – and the man considered the most underrated driver among Honda’s fleet of GT500 factory drivers has been instrumental to ARTA’s recent successes.

Nojiri’s five pole positions since the start of 2017 lead all active drivers over the past two seasons, and his closing stints helped locked down crucial victories both at Suzuka in fending off Yamamoto, and at Motegi in driving away from the field, securing ARTA’s third-place result in the 2018 GT500 Championships. 29-year-old Nojiri is quickly becoming a force to be reckoned with in GT500, on the verge of a championship breakthrough.

Izawa, meanwhile, treasured every bit of his return to ARTA after he was displaced from Team Kunimitsu and his long-time co-driver Yamamoto to make way for Button. The change of scenery benefitted Izawa greatly: In his reunion with ARTA, he won multiple races for the first time since 2009, and recorded his best championship result since 2015.

Expect another solid year ahead for the favorite team of Mx. Orange Jacket, and some great battles ahead with their Honda rivals at Team Kunimitsu – as they may have championship implications as the season progresses.

#17 | Keihin Real Racing | Keihin NSX-GT | Bridgestone | Koudai Tsukakoshi & Bertrand Baguette

The third of the Bridgestone-clad Honda teams, Keihin Real Racing, opened the 2018 season with a victory at Okayama. It was a big win for the blue and silver Keihin NSX-GT, ending a long winless drought since their very first GT500 victory in the closest finish in series history at Sportsland Sugo in July 2010.

After the victory at Okayama, just one more podium finish for the rest of the season at the Fuji 500km wasn’t enough to keep Real Racing in contention down the stretch. But there’s a lot of excitement around Katsutomo Kaneishi’s squad going into 2019, thanks to a retooled driver lineup and a renewed focus.

Takashi Kogure, who’d raced for the team over the last three seasons, is now no longer driving for Honda in GT500. This means that 32-year-old Koudai Tsukakoshi is now the most tenured active driver for Honda, starting his 11th consecutive full-time campaign at Keihin Real Racing.

Tsukakoshi was the young man who just edged out Kogure over the line at Sugo to take Real Racing’s first GT500 victory, and he held off a hard-charging Naoki Yamamoto last April at Okayama, helping them to their second victory. In between, Tsukakoshi has been a title contender in GT500, finishing runner-up in 2013. Alongside Yamamoto and Nojiri, Tsukakoshi has been one of the pillars of Honda’s factory racing efforts for over a decade, even through their deepest struggles of recent memory.

Tsukakoshi now has a new co-driver for this season: 33-year-old Bertrand Baguette of Belgium, joining Real Racing following five seasons with Nakajima Racing. Baguette came to Super GT five years ago off the back of a WEC LMP2 Championship in 2013. Success has been fleeting, save for Baguette’s triumphant victory in the final Suzuka 1000km in 2017.

But now with a team that is, frankly, better proven to make a championship challenge, Baguette has a great opportunity to have his best-ever Super GT season. With Nakajima Racing, the Belgian has carried the team through most of his five-year run. It’ll be an adjustment from the Dunlops to the Bridgestones, but through testing, the realignment has been going well, and the combination of Baguette and Tsukakoshi is very promising indeed.

Of course, Keihin Real Racing would love to start 2019 as they did in 2018 by taking the maximum points and the victory at Okayama. But they’d love more than ever to finally win their first set of GT500 titles – and they have the talent in place to do it.

#16 | Team Mugen | Motul Mugen NSX-GT | Yokohama | Hideki Mutoh & Daisuke Nakajima

Mugen are a name that is revered beyond the world of Super GT. They’re one of the most respected houses of racing engineering, with a reach that goes all the way to the pinnacle of Formula 1 as an engine builder. In Super GT, they’ve got a rich history, winning Honda’s first GT500 title (as the Mugen x Dome Project) in 2000.

After a decade and a half away from the premier class, Team Mugen returned to GT500 in 2017 to much fanfare. But the two seasons since their return have been a great struggle. They were last in the GT500 tables in 2017, and second-to-last, only ahead of Nakajima Racing, in 2018. It’s a bizarre contrast to their championship successes in Super Formula in the same timespan.

But this season, a new look and a new vision at the top has given Mugen fans reason to be optimistic for the year ahead. Shinji Nakano’s ties with Mugen go all the way back to his F1 debut in 1997. The veteran of F1, IndyCar, Le Mans, and Super GT replaces Nagataka Tezuka as the new Team Director of Team Mugen across both Super GT and Super Formula – yet another experienced former driver hoping to achieve sustained success as a manager.

With new management at the helm, 2019 will be a must-perform year for the experienced duo of Hideki Mutoh and Daisuke Nakajima, both of whom are back for their third seasons at Mugen. Ten seasons ago, Mutoh was racing in IndyCar for the mighty Andretti Autosport team, while Daisuke Nakajima was in British Formula 3 racing against future stars like Daniel Ricciardo, Nick Tandy, and Renger van der Zande.

Mutoh, 36, hasn’t won a race since November 2006 at Fuji Speedway, before his American exodus began. But he has had success with Team Mugen in the recent past: Mutoh drove Mugen’s hybrid-powered Honda CR-Z GT to the 2013 GT300 Championship alongside Yuhki Nakayama. He’s still a respected veteran driver, but Mutoh knows he has to perform to keep his place in the Honda GT500 fleet.

And it’s the same for 30-year-old Nakajima, whose career hasn’t matched the initial promise. While older brother Kazuki has been a mega star for Toyota and Lexus, Daisuke has just one GT500 podium to his name in four seasons with his father’s team and two with Mugen. With young Honda-backed stars in GT300 biting at their heels, it’s a make-or-break year for Nakajima and for Mutoh.

Mutoh’s pole position at Buriram was a big boost to Team Mugen, but they will absolutely be trying to get back to scoring points more regularly, getting on the podium, and maybe even pushing for a victory if the Yokohama Advan tyres are up to the task.

#64 | Modulo Nakajima Racing | Modulo Epson NSX-GT | Dunlop | Narain Karthikeyan & Tadasuke Makino

The last of the Honda teams, and the only team in all of GT500 carrying Dunlop tyres, is the new-look Modulo Nakajima Racing team, run by Japanese racing legend Satoru Nakajima. As it stands, they are the oldest GT500 team that’s yet to win a championship, starting their run in 1998. But Nakajima Racing are in the midst of a deep, deep struggle just to stay out of the bottom of the GT500 standings.

The number 64 NSX has finished last in the championship for five of the last six seasons, broken up in 2017 by their upset victory at the Suzuka 1000km – which is their only win in the last eleven seasons. While in theory, the exclusive tyre deal with Dunlop should have its benefits, with no other teams to gain feedback from, sustained success has been nearly impossible to come by.

So, in an attempt to revive the fortunes of this once-proud team, Honda have given Nakajima Racing a brand new driver lineup to drive the new-look #64 Modulo Epson NSX-GT, with Honda’s performance brand taking over as title sponsor as Nakajima-san’s longtime sponsors Epson take a reduced role.

The new drivers are an interesting blend of youth and experience, wherein Narain Karthikeyan is 20 years older than Tadasuke Makino, but it’s Makino who has more Super GT experience than Karthikeyan. India’s motorsport trailblazer, at 42, is the oldest of Honda’s drivers, and also the least experienced in this series. But he still has the desire to race at the highest levels of motor racing and represent his home country with pride.

So when his run in Super Formula ended after this off-season, Karthikeyan was eager to keep on racing in Japan in Super GT with a team he’s quite familiar with. He hasn’t driven sports cars at this level since the 2009 24 Hours of Le Mans, but with the wealth of experience that Karthikeyan brings from multiple series, he’s got a chance to shed the journeyman reputation from his F1 days.

In contrast, Tadasuke Makino is one of the brightest stars that has emerged from the Honda Formula Dream Project in recent years. 2nd in the inaugural FIA F4 Japanese Championship. A sensational GT300 debut in the 2016 Suzuka 1000km. A podium finish in the very next race on his GT500 debut at Buriram, at just 19 years of age. He’s spent the last two seasons racing in the European ladder to Formula 1, including a history-making feature race victory in the 2018 Formula 2 feature race at Monza.

For now, the F1 dream is on hold. Now back in Japan and still just 21 years of age, Makino finished the final pre-season test at Fuji on a high note and looks set to impress in his first full season in GT500. If he can help lead Modulo Nakajima Racing back to regular success in Super GT, then Makino will be well on his way to fulfilling the incredible potential he still holds as a driver.

Missed any of the other parts of our 2019 Super GT season preview? Catch up with the links below:

GT300 JAF-GT & Mother Chassis | GT300 FIA GT3 | GT500 Nissan | GT500 Lexus

Testing pictures by Pierre-Laurent Ribault (Twitter/Instagram: @plribault)

Feature image courtesy of the GT Association (GTA)