SUPER GT round wrap
SUPER GT’s 2026 Round 1 at Okayama wrapped over the weekend and Pacific Racing Team finished 23rd amid visible fan support trackside. (x.com). Social posts from the race included team shots and fan reaction rather than long technical analysis. (x.com)
Pacific Racing Team opened its 2026 SUPER GT season with a 23rd-place finish in the GT300 class at Okayama International Circuit on April 12. (supergt.net) The No. 9 PACIFIC Umamusume NAC BMW, driven by Yusuke Tomibayashi and Yuta Fujiwara, completed 75 laps in the 300-kilometer race and finished two laps behind class winner D’station Racing’s No. 777 Aston Martin. (supergt.net) SUPER GT splits the field into two classes, GT500 and GT300, and Pacific races in GT300, the larger class for customer-based sports cars and mixed manufacturer entries. The 2026 GT300 entry list shows 29 cars, including Pacific’s BMW M4 GT3 EVO on Michelin tires. (supergt.net; pacific-racing.jp) Okayama was the first of eight scheduled rounds in the 2026 season, with later races set for Fuji, Sepang, Suzuka, Sportsland Sugo, Autopolis and Mobility Resort Motegi. That makes even a lower-order finish part of the first points picture and the baseline for the rest of Pacific’s campaign. (supergt.net) Pacific’s 2026 lineup pairs Tomibayashi with 20-year-old Fujiwara, with Rintaro Kubo also listed on the season entry, and the team continues to run under car No. 9 in GT300. The team says it is returning to the class for a second straight season. (supergt.net; pacific-racing.jp) The race itself was won from the front in GT300, with D’station Racing’s Tomonobu Fujii and Charlie Fagg taking victory after 77 laps. Pacific finished in the bottom third of the class order, behind apr’s No. 30 GR86 and ahead of Team Helm Motorsports’ No. 62 Nissan GT-R. (supergt.net) Trackside attention around Pacific extended beyond the result sheet. The team’s own race-weekend channels emphasized group photos, ambassador appearances and fan reaction at Okayama more than setup detail or engineering breakdowns. (pacific-racing.jp; x.com) That fits Pacific’s place in SUPER GT, where some GT300 teams lean as heavily on branding, character tie-ins and fan culture as on technical messaging. Pacific’s 2026 car carries the “Umamusume” branding in its official entry name, and the team lists its Pacific Fairies ambassadors as part of its race operation. (supergt.net; pacific-racing.jp) At Okayama, the result was 23rd. The louder signal from Pacific’s weekend was that its fan-facing identity traveled with it into the new season. (supergt.net; x.com)
