Hiratsuka, Japan—The Yokohama Rubber Co., Ltd., is pleased to announce that a car equipped with its global flagship ADVAN brand tires won the GT300 class in the final race, Round 8 of the 2023 AUTOBACS SUPER GT Series, Japan’s ultimate touring car racing series. Round 8 was held at Mobility Resort Motegi (Tochigi Prefecture) on November 4 and 5, 2023. Many teams equipped their cars with ADVAN racing tires in the GT300 class this year, and those cars won four out of eight races.

The winner of the final race was the JLOC Lamborghini GT3, whose drivers were Takashi Kogure and Yuya Motojima. In the final, which they reached with second place in the qualifying round, Motojima took the wheel for the first stint, gained the lead early on and then passed the baton on to Kogure. Kogure, who come out on top in close quarters in the middle of the race under the pressure of the second placed machine, gradually increased the distance from his pursuers and took the checkered flag. This was Kogure’s first victory in the GT300 class and Motojima’s first in the SUPER GT. In addition, The DOBOT Audi R8 LMS, which was fitted with YOKOHAMA tires and driven by Yoshiaki Katayama and Roberto Merhi Muntan, finished third, taking the podium for the third time this season.

Under Yokohama Rubber’s three-year (2021–2023) medium-term management plan, Yokohama Transformation 2023 (YX2023), the consumer tire business aims to maximize the sales ratios of high-value-added YOKOHAMA tires, namely the global flagship ADVAN brand, the GEOLANDAR brand of tires for SUVs and pickup trucks, and various winter tires. YX2023 also positions participation in motorsports activities as crucial to the company’s effort to develop new tire technologies that will further strengthen the ADVAN and GEOLANDAR brands. Yokohama Rubber therefore is again participating in a wide variety of motorsports events in Japan and around the globe, from top-category to grassroots events.