On December 11th, Honda Racing Corporation (HRC) announced the plans for its automobile motorsports activities in 2025. According to the announcement, there will be five teams competing in the 2025 SUPER GT GT500 class entering five CIVIC TYPE R-GT cars. As for the driver lineup, there will be a driver change in one of the teams. That involves Syun Koide, who has performed with success for two seasons in the GT300 class driving the NSX-GT3 and is now to be promotion to the Astemo REAL RACING team.

　 In the release introducing the SUPER GT series program, it was announced that the STANLEY TEAM KUNIMITSU driver pair of Naoki Yamamoto and Tadasuke Makino that finished 2nd in this season’s GT500 class ranking competing with a newly developed CIVIC TYPE R-GT machine based on the CIVIC TYPE R, and that next season Honda will continue its quest with the aim of winning the championship.

　Another subject introduced in this event was the fact that Kakunoshin Ohta will be participating in next season’s IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship. Having debuted in the GT300 class driving the NSX-GT3 in 2022, he then participated successfully in the GT500 class the following season and again this season. This season he drove the No. 17 Astemo CIVIC TYPE R-GT, and in Round 2 at Fuji Speedway he finished fastest in Q1 to help win the CIVIC TYPE R-GT its first Pole Position.

　With Ohta to be racing overseas in 2025, he will be replaced as the driver for the Astemo REAL RACINGのCIVIC TYPE R-GT in 2025 by Syun Koide, who was the 2022 season FIA-F4 champion, and the following year he participated in the GT300 class for the No. 18 UPGARAGE NSX GT3 team and took a GT300 class debut win in his first race in the opening round at Okayama, his first of two wins on the season. In 2024, he also succeeded in getting a 3rd-place Podium finish. Based on these accomplishments, his hope of being promoted to the GT500 class was finally realized.

　Note that the announcements this time did not include the race numbers or tire makers to be used by each team. Also, the driver pairs for the two ARTA cars were not introduced.

■ 2025 Season Honda Racing GT500 participant line-up