With Satoshi Motoyama retiring from GT500 competition this off-season, another three-time GT500 Drivers’ Champion, Yuji Tachikawa, has become the new “Iron Man” in the premier class of the Autobacs Super GT Series.

43-year-old Tachikawa first drove for Team Cerumo in 1999, the beginning of a record run that will continue this season, when he begins his twenty-first consecutive season as Lexus Team ZENT Cerumo’s lead driver. But this year, Tachikawa will start to write the first page in the next chapter of his legendary Super GT career.

On Wednesday, Lexus Team ZENT Cerumo formally announced their GT500 programme and with it, confirmed Tachikawa as the team’s new General Manager, replacing the retiring Hirohide Hamashima.

It is a massive commitment for Tachikawa, who will become the only full-time driver and team manager in the GT500 class of Super GT this season – driving alongside Hiroaki Ishiura in the #38 ZENT Cerumo LC500, and managing the racing operations of the team from the pit wall.

Many accomplished former racing drivers have enjoyed success in managing teams in Super GT, of the fifteen teams in GT500, ten of them will be led by former top-level racing drivers in 2019.

But a full-time “player-manager” hasn’t been seen in GT500 since the twilight years of the racing careers of drivers like Aguri Suzuki (Autobacs Racing Team Aguri), Masahiro Hasemi (Hasemi Motor Sport), Kunimitsu Takahashi (Team Kunimitsu), and Kazuyoshi Hoshino (Team Impul). In fact, you’ll need to go back to 2002, Hoshino’s last year as a racing driver, to find the last full-time driver/manager in GT500.

That said, Tachikawa is no stranger to managing teams in the highest levels of Japanese motor racing. In 2010 he became the Team Director of Team Cerumo in the Formula Nippon Championship, known today as Super Formula. From 2015 to 2017, Tachikawa led Cerumo to a hat trick of Super Formula Drivers’ and Teams’ Championships – two with Ishiura, and one with Yuji Kunimoto.

Tachikawa is among the all-time career record holders in the 25-year history of Super GT. He is one of four drivers to win three or more GT500 Drivers’ Championships. In 165 career championship races from 1996 through 2018, Tachikawa holds the all-time GT500 records for pole positions with 22, and career points with 1,112. His 18 wins and 44 podium finishes are good enough for 2nd all-time in both respective categories.

He has recorded at least one podium finish in the last twenty consecutive seasons, spanning his entire tenure with Cerumo, another Super GT record. Of his 18 wins, eight of them have come at Fuji Speedway – giving Tachikawa the nickname “Fuji-meister”. Last year, Tachikawa and Ishiura finished 4th in the GT500 Championship, with a third-place finish in the Fuji 500km and a second-place finish at the season finale at Twin Ring Motegi.

Bringing his perspective as a top driver to the role of General Manager to help strengthen the entire team, Lexus Team ZENT Cerumo will certainly be among the top contenders for the GT500 title in 2019, and now more than ever, it will be Tachikawa leading the way.

Images courtesy of Toyota and the GT Association