Fujinami Excited By Seven x Seven Porsche’s GT300 Potential

Photo: SUPER GT

Kiyoto Fujinami says he is convinced that the Porsche 911 GT3 R will be competitive on its return to SUPER GT competition, as the two-time GT300 champion gears up for his first season in with the brand new Seven x Seven Racing team.

It was announced in January that Porsche would be represented in the Japanese series for the first time since 2021 courtesy of the new Seven x Seven outfit that is run by KF Motorsport, the team founded by Fujinami in 2022.

A rapid rise to prominence saw the team, after entering into a partnership with luxury resort chain Seven x Seven, win on its SRO Japan Cup debut at Okayama last year with Fujinami and gentleman driver ‘Bankcy’ sharing driving duties.

Now Fujinami is aiming for similar success as he prepares to take on this year’s GT300 campaign in the unusual dual role of driver/team director.

“KF Motorsport started off in amateur-level racing, and even though this is a separate venture, if we hadn’t done that we wouldn’t be here now,” Fujinami told Sportscar365. “I really want to make full use of this chance.

“It’s fantastic to be able to do it with Porsche, a brand that is famous all over the world but hasn’t been in SUPER GT the last few years. The car feels competitive, we have great mechanics and engineers, so as drivers we have to give our best.”

Fujinami is partnered aboard the No. 666 Porsche by another GT300 race winner, Tsubasa Kondo, while ex-Honda GT500 engineer Hitoshi Iyoki has joined as chief engineer, making the move from the GT300 championship-winning JLOC team.

On how Iyoki joined the team, Fujinami recalled: “In 2019 I did a bit of racing in Korea, and we met then. Since then we haven’t worked together but when we raced in Japan Cup last year at Okayama, we met again and I asked if he would be interested.

“As he won the title for JLOC last year, I assumed he would continue, but I thought it would do no harm in asking, and I was surprised when he said he would join us!”

Fujinami, who won the GT300 title in 2020 and ’22 alongside Joao Paulo de Oliveira in a Kondo Racing Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3, added he believes that all the ingredients are in place to mount a title assault as early as this season.

He did however admit that being unable to participate in June’s Sepang round, due to a lack of seeding rights as a new team amid strict restrictions on pit lane space, means the pressure is on to be competitive immediately.

“The balance of the car is great, but at the moment I would say that the Balance of Performance is not that good,” said Fujinami. “But the feeling inside the cockpit is great, and you can really feel the car’s potential. It’s also very reliable.

“It’s a car that should be competitive with the Ferrari, Mercedes-AMG and Lamborghini, and we don’t want to lose to them. Porsche has also been helping us with engineering support, so it feels like they are a really strong partner.

“It will be tough but we want to target the title in our first season. It’s unfortunate we can’t race at Sepang, so that’s a disadvantage, and we have to make sure we don’t lose any points in the Japanese races. But I want to give it our best shot.”

As well as winning immediately in SRO Japan Cup last year, Seven x Seven also triumphed on its Super Taikyu debut at Motegi last month, but Fujinami was eager not to read too much into the team’s form in the pro-am series.

“I think that was because ‘Bankcy’ is a strong gentleman driver,” admitted Fujinami. “He’s super-fast, not that much slower than the pros, we had a bit of a margin.

“I think that’s why we were able to win in Super Taikyu immediately. SUPER GT is an all-professional series, so it’s a different story.”

For the final pre-season test at Fuji Speedway last weekend, Fujinami and Kondo were joined aboard the No. 666 car by Porsche Supercup star Harry King, who had a relationship with ‘Bankcy’ via coaching work in Porsche Carrera Cup Middle East.

While King is unavailable for next weekend’s Okayama opener due to a clash with his primary commitments in GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Endurance Cup, the British driver is likely to race for Seven x Seven later in the year.

“When there are no clashes with his schedule in Europe, we plan to invite him for the longer races,” clarified Fujinami when asked if King could be in line for a GT300 debut.