Tokyo ‒ The Yokohama Rubber Co., Ltd., announced today that a racing car running on its ADVAN racing tires has won the drivers championship in the GT300 class of the SUPER GT 2014 series. This year’s victory returns the championship trophy to a YOKOHAMA tire‒equipped car after a one year hiatus following four straight victorious seasons from 2009.

The champion vehicle is the GOODSMILE Hatsune Miku Z4 entered by GOODSMILE RACING (GSR) & Team UKYO and driven by Nobuteru Taniguchi and Tatsuya Kataoka. The Hatsune Miku Z4’s road to the championship started with victories in the series’ first two races. The car and drivers had to overcome some challenges during the middle rounds of the series, including the Z4’s weight handicap and getting caught up in a crash, but the team rallied in the latter rounds of the series, including a third place finish in Round 7, the series’ first ever race in Thailand. As a result, the team headed into this series finale in first place with a nine-point lead over the second place team. Able to clinch the championship with a finish in the top three, GSR & Team UKYO started the final race in third position after the qualifying rounds. The final race’s battle for the series championship was an intense back and forth battle, but drivers Taniguchi and Kataoka ran a flawless race, holding on to the third position and securing the series championship.

The great majority of cars entered in this year's SUPER GT ‒ including the Studie BMW Z4 driven by Jorg Muller and Seiji Ara, which finished the series in third place, and the B-MAX NDDP GT-R driven by Kazuki Hoshino and Lucas Ordonez, which finished in fourth place ‒ was equipped with YOKOHAMA’s ADVAN racing tires. The ADVAN tires’ stably high performance contributed to the cars’ solid results.


■Drivers’ comments
Nobuteru Taniguchi:
We captured the championship, but it was an intensely fought race. Our third place finish in this race and the series championship are the result of the hard work put in by both drivers and the entire team. I couldn’t be happier with this result.

Tatsuya Kataoka:
The excellent performance of the YOKOHAMA tires in very difficult conditions helped put us on the podium today. Taniguchi and I kept pushing our car to its limits, and we somehow managed to capture the series championship.