Toyota’s Masson Set for Return From Injury in NLS1

Photo: Asian Le Mans Series

Toyota junior driver Esteban Masson is set to make his return from injury in this weekend’s opening round of the NLS at the Nürburgring as part of a SP8T class effort fielded under the Toyota Gazoo Racing banner.

Masson has been out of action since last December’s opening round of the Asian Le Mans Series at Sepang, where he scored a victory in the GT class in CarGuy Racing’s Ferrari 296 GT3 together with Takeshi Kimura and Daniel Serra.

It followed an accident for the Frenchman at Suzuka in a test for his upcoming Super Formula Lights campaign that forced him to sit out the remainder of the Asian Le Mans Series season, plus the opening round of the Japanese series this month.

While the exact nature of the 20-year-old’s injuries were never specified by the Kessel Racing-run CarGuy team, it’s understood he suffered multiple fractured vertebra.

However, Masson is poised to return to action this weekend as he joins the KCMG-run Toyota effort for NLS1, being registered together with fellow Toyota junior Miki Koyama and another member of the marque’s SUPER GT stable, Giuliano Alesi.

The trio of drivers are registered across both of the team’s entries, the No. 172 and No. 173 Toyota GR Supra GT4 EVOs.

A further Toyota-backed entry in the SP8T class comes in the form of another GR Supra entered by Toyo Tires by Ring Racing for Yuichi Nakayama and Kazuto Kotaka.

Nakayama, who was replaced by Sacha Fenestraz in Toyota’s GT500 roster this year, and GT500 reserve Kotaka are set to contest the majority of the NLS season in the No. 160 car, with Koyama and Alesi joining them for the Nürburgring 24 in June.

Nakayama, Kotaka and Alesi were all named as part of the driver pool participating in Super Taikyu and at the Nürburgring this year last December, but did not feature in January’s announcement concerning Toyota’s factory-backed Rookie Racing team.

Masson meanwhile will turn his attention to his European Le Mans Series campaign with VDS Panis Racing, which begins with the official Prologue test in Barcelona on March 31-April 1 before the opening race at the same track that weekend.