Saitama Toyopet GreenBrave Announces 2021 Racing Activities
Saitama Toyopet GreenBrave announced their 2021 motorsports programmes in a live streaming event on Saturday, starring Saitama Toyopet company President Takayuki Hiranuma, and drivers Naoki Hattori, Kohta Kawaai , and Hiroki Yoshida.
The Japanese team will compete in the Autobacs Super GT Series with their popular Toyota GR Supra GT300, as well as in the ST-3 class of the Super Taikyu Series with their Toyota Crown RS luxury sedan.
The Toyota GR Supra GT300, designed by Saitama Toyopet GreenBrave and constructed by fellow GTA GT300 runners apr Racing, will continue to be powered by Toyota’s 5.4 litre 2UR-GSE V8 engine. Bridgestone will continue to supply tyres to the team, having joined GreenBrave as a tyre supplier in 2019.
Drivers have not changed for either programme, with 37-year-old veteran Yoshida and 26-year-old sophomore Kawaai, the team’s two ace drivers, returning to drive the #52 GreenBrave GR Supra GT300 – which will have a refreshed version of its traditional green and yellow livery in 2021.
Yoshida and Kawaai scored two victories in 2020 – including the team’s maiden win in the debut race for the GR Supra GT300 at Fuji Speedway in July – and finished runner-up in the GT300 Drivers’ Championship, the best season ever for the team that joined the series in 2017. Kawaai was selected as Super GT World‘s GT300 class recipient of the Shingo Tachi Memorial Award, given to the most outstanding rookie driver in the series.
Their Super Taikyu Crown RS, a class winner on debut in the 2020 Fuji Super TEC 24 Hours – and at the most recent Super Taikyu race in Autopolis in December – will return for the 2021 season. GT500 and Japanese Top Formula legend Hattori, and team president/gentleman racer Hiranuma, will join the aforementioned Yoshida and Kawaai in driving the GreenBrave Crown RS, which also features the new 2021 GreenBrave colorway.
In addition, Yoshida and Kawaai will represent GreenBrave in the Toyota 86/BRZ Race Professional Series.
As part of the team’s mission statement, their race cars will continue to be prepared by a crew consisting of service mechanics employed at Saitama Toyopet dealerships across the prefecture – which has made GreenBrave one of the more popular teams in Super GT’s second division.
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