Honda's new-for-2026 Prelude-GT delivered its strongest result yet at Suzuka on August 23, sweeping all three GT500 podium positions at Super GT Round 5 — and handing Keiichi Tsuchiya, the Drift King, his first GT500 victory as a team director.
The No. 16 ARTA MUGEN HRC PRELUDE-GT of Tomoki Nojiri and Ren Sato won the 52-lap SUZUKA GT 300km RACE in 1:47'00.904. The No. 17 Astemo HRC PRELUDE-GT of Koudai Tsukakoshi and Yuto Nomura finished 2.220 seconds behind, with the No. 8 ARTA MUGEN car of Kakunoshin Ota and Hiroki Otsu third at 3.011 seconds — three podium places, three Prelude-GTs, including two entries from the ARTA organization.
Ren Sato and Tsuchiya score their firsts
The victory delivered a stack of milestones from one garage. Ren Sato took his first career Super GT win — in either class — and spoke afterward of repaying HRC's backing. Nojiri, the veteran alongside him, collected his 11th GT500 win and his first in two years.
The name that resonates furthest beyond Japan sat on the pit wall. Keiichi Tsuchiya — whose AE86 exploits and Japanese motoring videos helped carry drifting around the world — earned his first GT500 victory in the team director role at ARTA. His stated approach to managing drivers: fast, aggressive ones bring results.
There was a rookie milestone on Saturday too: Nomura, in his first season, put the No. 17 car on pole — his first — before finishing second on Sunday.
How the race ended
Suzuka was brutal — 34°C air and 49°C track temperatures — and the finish came under safety car after a Green Brave GR Supra rolled at 130R late in the race; driver Hiroki Yoshida was reported unhurt. Two full-course-yellow periods had already punctuated the running.
Two wins in a row, with the usual caveat
Round 4 at Fuji on August 2 was the Prelude-GT's first-ever race win, taken by the No. 100 STANLEY car. Suzuka makes it two rounds in a row for the model — won by two different cars from two different teams, which says more about the package than a single result could.
The honest caveat is success ballast. The championship-leading No. 36 TGR TEAM au TOM'S entry of Sho Tsuboi and Kenta Yamashita was carrying heavy success weight and finished ninth, per motorsport.com's race report — mid-season Super GT results always come with that asterisk. Tsuboi and Yamashita still lead the drivers' standings on 50 points, with Nojiri and Sato moving up to second on 33; TOM'S heads the teams' table on 62 to ARTA's 45, with three rounds remaining.
One clarification for readers who know the Prelude name from Honda's front-drive coupes of the '80s and '90s, or the road car Honda revived in 2025: the Prelude-GT is a purpose-built, rear-wheel-drive GT500 racer, not a competition version of the street car. Even so, the sight of three of them filling a Suzuka podium gives the revived nameplate a chapter nobody saw coming.