Starting under fresh clear blue skies and sunshine, the opening couple hours ran clean with only local yellow flags being needed to cover what drama there was on track with the #777 crew still battling for a podium position as the light began to fade into the final hour of racing.

Eventually finishing the race and indeed the season under total darkness, the #777 crew had done enough for them to round off another enjoyable season return to the Super Taikyu Series with a P3 overall result.

No doubt, plans for a 2026 return are underway already.

Photo credits – Team / Series / social media

The crews absence from the earlier Fuji 24hour round prevents the team from pushing for that illusive overall win with their fourth in class position not quite clear enough from the chasing #101 entry to be safe regardless of Sunday’s results.

Individual class qualifying will again be run over Saturday afternoon before the final four-hour race of the season is waved off at 13:15hrs (local) on Sunday.

Photo credits – Team / Series / social media

A three-hour race with three drivers made the stint lengths a relatively simple calculation for all as the #777 pitted around the top of the hour as they still ran fourth overall after their first scheduled stop.

With the whole race being run under glum conditions, a briefly emerging sun saved itself for the chequered flag and podium as the #777 eventually came home third overall, thirty-eight seconds off the winning pace of the #666 Porsche.

The final round of the season will take place at their team’s home track of Fuji Speedway in mid-November.

Photo credits – Team / social media

Round six of seven, sees the teams new for 2025 red liveried #777 AMR Vantage GT3 of Satoshi Hoshino, Tomonobu Fujii and Yuta Kamimura compete again together within an eight strong ST-X class since their last round together at Autopolis way back at the end of July where the secured a front row start to ultimately finish in fourth.

Having elected to miss their home Fuji Speedway twenty-four hour earlier in the season, the #777 would need something close to a minor miracle in class to win the class outright as they trail the present leaders by forty-three points in fourth place overall with just two races remaining.

Qualifying will again be on Saturday ahead of a 13:30hrs local start to this three-hour race.

Photo credit – Team / Series / social media

Fujii opened the proceedings for the team, yet he had to spend his entire opening stint chasing the #101 third placed starting Audi to hold a comfortable P2 at the top of the first hour. Hoshino was aboard next who took the car towards the halfway mark to the race but their post stop outlap was slowed by being the wrong side of a Safety Car for a car in the barrier.

From that point on, it was impossible for the #777 crew to make further inroads into the gap to their ST-X class rivals ahead where they ultimately finished fourth overall just under a lap down to the top three finishes.

Next stop for the team will be back in the Super GT Series from their home track of Fuji Speedway next weekend.

Photo credits – Team

The weekend started well for the #777 crew as earlier fast Free Practice times were replicated into an overall Pole position ahead of Sundays race.

Again running their series specific red livery, the car quickly established a controlling race lead ahead of their two ST-X class rivals as the race got underway around a dry Sugo circuit.

Just a couple of brief interruptions for cars stopping on track interrupted the flow as both the #777 Aston Martin came home to claim their first Super Taikyu Series race win of the season with its #47 crew also taking another class win for themselves. 

The series will now move onto Autopolis at the end of the month.



Photo credit – Team

This week, the respective driver crews return to their specific #777 and #47 entries with team owner Satoshi Hoshino again partnering team manager Tomonobu Fujii and Yuta Kamimura.

As a result of preferences made for their home track Fuji 24, the class position of the #777 car has now slipped to fifth in class with now a 59-point margin to the present ST-X class leader.

It will also be back-to-back race weekends for some parts of the D’Station Racing team having just competed within the Super GT’s sole fly away round of that championship over in Sepang, Malaysia last weekend where both Fujii and Charlie Fagg were at the wheel of that #777 AMR there.

Photo credits – Team / Series

The earlier two rounds of the series from both Motegi and Suzuka saw the #777 AMR powered trio of Satoshi Hoshino, Tomonobu Fuji and Yuta Kamimura finish a distant fourth at the opening round before finishing third overall next time out, so to give way from the top ST-X class of the Aston Martin to the two-car entry of the ST-1is something of an ‘eyebrow’ raiser!!

Photo credits – Team / Series

Not that was always the case at the opening round to the season from Motegi after an early session off for the lead to the aesthetically bizarre sight of the car running in a mix of its new red and more traditional green livery colours for the race.

Although at the time, the #777 was unable to make the qualifying sessions whilst repairs were being undertaken, the crew did come back from the back of the grid to secure an overall and class P4 finish at the end of that four-hour race.

Hopefully, they will have more luck this time around.

Photo credits – Team / social media

Sporting a very familiar driver line up of both team owner Satoshi Hoshino and team manager Tomonobu Fujii, the pair with this time be joined by third driver Yuta Kamimura for their five strong ST-X class battle as the team step back to the more domestic home roots having competed upon the word stage for the last few years in the FIA World Endurance Championship.

Another sixty strong mixed class grid will be at the circuit this weekend however, the fastest and the slowest cars classes will be split again into two individual races – on the grounds of safety if nothing else.

The team do run with a second car within the ST-1 class but their previous AMR Vantage GT8R machine has now been replaced by a Porsche 992 platform to again battle with the all dominant KTM X-Bow from the KS frontier team.

Photo credits – Team / social media

Although last night’s announcement is for two cars, only one will be an Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 for a realignment of their 2022 WEC campaign with Charlie Fagg joining the usual Satoshi Hoshino and Tomonobu Fujii within the #777 car whilst their previous GT8R runners will now be within a Porsche having sampled the Vantage GT3 within a couple of rounds of last season’s GT world Challenge Asia Japan Cup.

This season’s seven round season starts at the end of March and runs through to mid-November.

Photo credits – Team / social media

Amongst those thirty-two cars we will only see the #8 Earl Bamber Motorsport Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 of Setiawan Santosa take part as the D’Station Racing team have elected not to travel – mainly because the World Endurance Championship is in attendance at their home circuit of Fuji this weekend as well.

Santosa runs as a solo driver within the Am Class and sits a very credible fourth within his drivers championship table going into this final event and with fifty points still available, he could move up as high as second come the end of the season on Sunday.

The EBM team has been in the news today for other reasons as the New Zealand based team has been awarded a lucrative GT3 entry within this year’s Asian Le Mans Series over the New Year.

Photo credits – Team / series

Like any championship in any discipline – to win it, first you must finish it and that is precisely what the duo did within the four event – eight race format after the pair swapped from the Vantage GT3 platform in favour of their more usual GT4 format after the second round from Fuji International.

Not counting any championship points from those four opening races, their very inclusion and the omission of the other three crews within the Am class for the two remaining events all but secured the GT4 Am Drivers Championship having finished each of those four races with maximum points.

We just wonder what may have happened had they stayed within the GT3 Am Class?

The final Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 from the Earl Bamber Motorsport team saw Setiawan Santosa follow up his recent podium run with a pair of P4 finishes within his Am Class within the main series as that now moves onto Shanghai to round off another successful year in three weeks time.

Photo credits – Team / series

Casting our minds back to the action at the Circuit de La Sarthe – that was not really one to remember in the end as the #777 D’Station Racing AMR Vantage LMGT3 of Satoshi Hoshino, Erwan Bastard and Marco Sorenson eventually finished P9 in class after the #27 Heart of Racing AMR Vantage GT3 of Ian James, Alex Riberas and Daniel Mancinelli exited the race in the early hours of Sunday morning with that scary image of the car rolling onto its roof after a heavy contact with the tyre wall at Indianapolis.

Thankfully, Mancinelli was otherwise OK as he picked himself out of the wreckage of what was left of his car, and we understand that that chassis has now been replaced and rebuilt (alongside the D’Station Racing car) at the Prodrive facility in time to be flown to Sao Paulo for this weekend’s events.

The crews are already at the circuit preparing both their garages and their cars for the track action that begins on Friday morning with the first of three Free Practice sessions.

The only change so far is the expected swap back from Hoshino within the #777 to that of Clement Mateu as the Frenchman’s deal with the Japanese team was to step aside to allow what later became Hoshino’s final racing visit to the event.

Championship wise, that DNF at Le Mans and a poor finish the round before at Spa Francorchamps has seen their early pace falter as they drop to seventh within the LMGT3 Driver table on half the points of the leader whilst the usual two D’Station drivers (Bastard and Sorenson) now sit in fourth thanks to the double points on offer at Le Mans. They are thirty-three points behind the leading crew.

The Six Hours of Sao Paula starts at 11:30 hours local on Sunday.

Photo credits – Teams / Kelvin Pope Firecracker Media