SUPER GT's Mother Chassis saved as Arnage switches to 86 MC

Doubts had been swirling in the paddock about the future of the Mother Chassis concept amid fading team support for the standard Dome chassis/Nissan engine package introduced in 2015.

Just two teams ran Mother Chassis-based cars in 2021, one of which – Inging/Cars Tokai – has already announced it is abandoning its Lotus Evora MC in favour of a move to the GT300-rules Toyota GR86 this year.

While the other, Team Mach, is yet to announce its plans, Arnage committing to running a first-generation Toyota 86 guarantees at least one Mother Chassis car will be on the GT300 grid in 2022.

Sharing driving duties for Arnage across the season will be gentleman racer Masaki Kano, Ryohei Sakaguchi (who moves across from Inging) and Ryosei Yamashita, although it’s unclear if any of the trio will tackle the full season. Yokohama meanwhile stays on as tyre supplier.

#50 Arnage AMG GT3

Photo by: GTA

Two-time GT500 champion Masataka Yanagida shared a Mercedes-AMG GT3 with Kano last year, the pair achieving a best result of 14th place at Autopolis.

However, the team’s Mercedes has since been sold off to sister outfit R’Qs Motor Sport, whose own AMG-GT3 was terminally damaged in a crash at the Kyushu track last year.

More teams firm up GT300 plans

Elsewhere on the GT300 grid, JLOC has confirmed plans to maintain a two-car presence in the GT300 class with a pair of Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evos.

The driver line-up remains unchanged, with Natsu Sakaguchi and Kosuke Matsuura remaining aboard the #87 car and Takashi Kogure and Yuya Motojima continuing at the wheel of the sister #88 machine.

Apr has also announced that Koki Saga and Yuhki Nakayama will continue as a pairing aboard its #31 Toyota Prius PHV GR Sport this year.

The team had previously revealed that it would field a solo Prius alongside a solo example of the new Toyota GR86, which is built to GT300 rules.

#60 SYNTIUM LMcorsa GR Supra GT

Photo by: Motorsport.com / Japan

Another Toyota team, LM Corsa, took the opportunity to show off a new silver livery for its GR Supra on Friday at the Osaka Auto Messe show (above). Hiroki Yoshimoto and Shunsuke Kohno remain as drivers for the #60 machine, which will also continue to use Dunlop tyres in 2022.

Confirmed SUPER GT GT300 entries so far:

GT300 (ex-JAF GT300)

Toyota GR86 x 3 - apr (car #30), Shade Racing, Inging
Subaru BRZ x 1 - R&D Sport
Toyota GR Supra x 3 - Tsuchiya Engineering, Max Racing, LM Corsa
Toyota Prius PHV GR Sport x 1 – apr (car #31)

FIA GT3

Honda NSX GT3 x 2 - ARTA, Team UpGarage
Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 x 3 - Gainer (two cars), Kondo Racing
Lexus RC F GT3 x 1 - K-Tunes Racing
Mercedes-AMG GT3 x 3 - LEON Racing, Goodsmile Racing, R'Qs Motor Sport
BMW M4 GT3 x 1 - BMW Team Studie
Lamborghini Huracan GT3 x 2 – JLOC (two cars)

Mother Chassis

Toyota 86 MC x 1 – Arnage Racing