More GT4 Japan entries confirmed for Okayama

Three more teams – Comet, CREF and Craft-Bamboo – will contest Fanatec GT World Challenge Asia Powered by AWS’s upcoming GT4 Japan event at Okayama on August 18-20.

The two hour-long sprints will be SRO Motorsports Group’s first-ever standalone GT4 races in the region. Mirroring the existing Fanatec GT Asia format, each car features two drivers who swap places between minutes 25-35, while two quarter-hour qualifying sessions set both grids.

Comet, CREF and Craft-Bamboo all compete in Fanatec GT Asia’s GT3 class, but none are strangers to GT4 either.

CREF raced a McLaren 570S GT4 at Suzuka and Okayama last year and now return with the new-for-2023 Artura, which makes its competitive Asia debut at Okayama. The entry features Yuko Suzuki and Masataka Inoue who raced the team’s 720S GT3 at Fuji and Motegi earlier this season.

Fellow Japanese team, Comet, fielded GT3 and GT4 entries last year before solely focusing on the senior class this. However, that changes at Okayama where its Mercedes-AMG will be in the hands of Risa Oogushi and Kazuki Oki.

Craft-Bamboo, meanwhile, makes its first GT4 start since Shanghai 2019. The former class champion is yet to name its driver combination but will run a Mercedes-AMG just as it did four years ago.

Those three additions take the current GT4 Japan entry to eight. 

Okayama’s GT4 Japan races will decide this year’s Fanatec Japan Cup titles and, potentially, the overall GT4 championship as well. Two more races – both part of Fanatec GT Asia – follow at Sepang in September.

YZ Racing with BMW M Team Studie’s Masaki Kano and Max Orido currently top both standings after winning twice at Motegi.