Real Co., Ltd., better known as Real Racing, is a Japanese company headed by former racing driver Katsutomo Kaneishi.
History In 2007 Katsutomo Kaneishi had a tie-up with the Japanese version of Rolling Stone to launch Real Racing. The team name originates from their policy of "delivering real motorsports activities and fun to as many people as possible." Hiroshi Tanaka, former representative of Heroes Racing, was invited to be the manager. In its debut season in 2007, the team participated in the Japanese Formula 3 Championship and Super GT's GT500 class. In 2009, the Japanese F3 team began racing under the team name HFDP Racing as part of the Honda Formula Dream Project, Honda's young driver development project, and the team also started participating in Formula Nippon with the same name (Real Racing Team was launched in 2011). From that season onwards, Katsutomo Kaneishi has devoted himself to being the manager
Super Formula Real Racing competed in Formula Nippon under the HFDP Racing banner in 2009 and 2010 with Koudai Tsukakoshi as the driver. In 2011, the team made their debut as Real Racing, fielding cars for Takashi Kobayashi and Hideki Mutoh. For the following season their drivers were Yuhki Nakayama and Toshihiro Kaneishi, the cousin of Katsutomo Kaneishi. Tsukakoshi returned to the team in 2013 in place of Kaneishi, and in 2014 former Italian Formula One driver Vitantonio Liuzzi took over Nakayama's seat and raced with the team for a single season. Takuya Izawa replaced Liuzzi for the 2015 and 2016 seasons, with Tsukakoshi maintaining the other seat. The team opted to race with one car from 2017 to 2019. They only fielded Tsukakoshi during these seasons, except in 2019 when Tristan Charpentier was supposed to race the full season, but got axed after the first round, with Tsukakoshi returning to the team to complete the remaining rounds of the season. In 2020, Real Racing announced it was withdrawing from the 2020 season.
Super GT – GT500
In 2007, Real Racing competed in the GT500 with Honda as their choice of car manufacturer. Kaneishi himself took the wheel as an owner-driver along with his cousin Toshihiro Kaneishi. The F3 engine and Super GT vehicle were both manufactured by Honda, while the tyres came from Bridgestone. The team maintained its F3 cars in-house, although Super GT maintenance was outsourced from ARTA. In 2009, Keihin became the title sponsor of the team in Super GT, a role which it held until the end of the 2020 season. Keihin merged with a number of other companies to form Astemo, a joint venture between Hitachi and Honda at the time; as the result, Astemo replaced Keihin as the title sponsor for Real Racing in 2021. Nobuharu Matsushita rejoined Honda as a factory driver for 2022 and signed with Astemo Real Racing. He replaced Bertrand Baguette, who left Honda at the end of 2021. For 2024, Real Racing would have Kakunoshin Ohta as the replacement for Matsushita.
Race results Complete Super GT results
Sources:
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap) Year CarTyres Class No. Drivers 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 910 Pos Points 2007 Honda NSX GT500 17 Katsutomo Kaneishi Toshihiro Kaneishi Takuya IzawaSUZOKAFUJSEPSUGSUZMOTAUTFUJ 13th 41 2008 Honda NSX GT500 17 Katsutomo Kaneishi Toshihiro Kaneishi Koudai TsukakoshiSUZOKAFUJSEPSUGSUZMOTAUTFUJ15th30 2009 Honda NSX GT500 17 Toshihiro Kaneishi Koudai Tsukakoshi Katsutomo KaneishiOKASUZFUJSEPSUGSUZFUJAUTMOT5th72 2010 Honda HSV-010 GT GT500 17 Toshihiro Kaneishi Koudai TsukakoshiSUZOKAFUJSEPSUGSUZFUJMOTNC1NC23rd72 2011 Honda HSV-010 GT GT500 17 Toshihiro Kaneishi Koudai TsukakoshiOKAFUJSEPSUGSUZFUJAUTMOTNC1NC24th71 2012 Honda HSV-010 GT GT500 17 Toshihiro Kaneishi Koudai TsukakoshiOKAFUJSEPSUGSUZFUJAUTMOTNC1NC211th47 2013 Honda HSV-010 GT GT500 17 Toshihiro Kaneishi Koudai TsukakoshiOKAFUJSEPSUGSUZFUJAUTMOTNC1NC22nd85 2014 Honda NSX-GT GT500 17 Toshihiro Kaneishi Koudai TsukakoshiOKAFUJAUTSUGFUJSUZBURMOT 12th 34 2015 Honda NSX-GT GT500 17 Koudai Tsukakoshi Hideki MutohOKAFUJCHAFUJSUZSUGAUTMOT 8th 58 2016 Honda NSX-GT GT500 17 Koudai Tsukakoshi Takashi KogureOKAFUJ SUGFUJ SUZ CHAMOTMOT 11th 43 2017 Honda NSX-GT GT500 17 Koudai Tsukakoshi Takashi KogureOKA FUJAUTSUGFUJSUZCHA MOT 8th 51 2018 Honda NSX-GT GT500 17 Koudai Tsukakoshi Takashi KogureOKAFUJSUZCHAFUJSUGAUTMOT 6th 66 2019 Honda NSX-GT GT500 17 Koudai Tsukakoshi Bertrand BaguetteOKAFUJSUZBURFUJAUTSUGMOTNC1NC2 7th 54 2020 Honda NSX-GT GT500 17 Koudai Tsukakoshi Bertrand BaguetteFUJFUJSUZMOTFUJSUZMOTFUJ3rd80 2021 Honda NSX-GT GT500 17 Koudai Tsukakoshi Bertrand BaguetteOKAFUJMOTSUZSUGAUTMOTFUJ 5th 71 2022 Honda NSX-GT GT500 17 Koudai Tsukakoshi Nobuharu MatsushitaOKAFUJSUZFUJSUZSUGAUTMOT 4th 79.52023Honda NSX-GTGT50017 Koudai Tsukakoshi Nobuharu MatsushitaOKAFUJSUZFUJSUZSUGAUTMOT 7th 652024Honda Civic Type R-GTGT50017 Koudai Tsukakoshi Kakunoshin OhtaOKAFUJSUZFUJSUGAUTMOTSUZ10th542025Honda Civic Type R-GTGT50017 Koudai Tsukakoshi Syun KoideOKAFUJSEPFS1FS2SUZSUGAUTMOT10th45 ‡ Half points awarded as less than 75% of race distance was completed. * Season still in progress.
Note: Non-championship races (NC1, NC2) are major races that do not count towards the championship.
References
External links
in Japanese