Lexus has been forced to change its GT500 lineups for this year’s Super GT Fuji 500km in May, due to a clash with the FIA World Endurance Championship round at Spa.

The Fuji GT 500km Race is one of the classic events of the calendar held every year on May 4 during Japan’s Golden Week holiday. Though nearly 10,000 kilometers west of Fuji Speedway, the FIA World Endurance Championship will be running the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium – which creates a tricky dilemma for Toyota, which has drivers committed to both Super GT and the WEC.

Kazuki Nakajima and Yuji Kunimoto will both be at Spa-Francorchamps, driving for Toyota Gazoo Racing in separate TS050 Hybrid prototypes – Nakajima with his standard running mates Sébastien Buemi and Anthony Davidson, and Kunimoto in the third TS050 with Stéphane Sarrazin and Nicolas Lapierre.

Due to their WEC commitments taking priority, they won’t be able to run both the Fuji 500km on the 4th, and the Spa 6h on the 6th – barring, of course, the sudden launch of a new supersonic airline, or a sudden breakthrough in human cloning, or both!

Thus, Nakajima will vacate the #36 au TOM’s Lexus LC500, and Kunimoto will vacate the #19 WedsSport Advan LC500 for the Fuji 500km.

In anticipation, Lexus Team au TOM’s, and Lexus Team WedsSport Bandoh respectively, have named their substitute GT500 drivers for the upcoming Golden Week classic as early as February of this year.

2007 GT500 champion Daisuke Ito was named team director of the #36 au TOM’s squad this off-season. Now the 41-year-old veteran is coming back to the wheel of a GT500 car, driving with James Rossiter – who was Ito’s co-driver in the number 36 car two seasons ago.

It may very well be the final GT500 appearance for Ito, who has said he’ll hold off on a decision about his racing future until the end of 2017.

There’s some extra personal incentive for Ito to come back at Fuji as well: He’s never won a race at the mountain in 34 previous JGTC/Super GT starts.

For Lexus Team WedsSport Bandoh, finding a driver to replace Kunimoto was a bit tougher.

It’s always difficult to replace the reigning and defending Japanese Super Formula Champion, tougher still when your third driver for the Suzuka 1000km, Kamui Kobayashi, is also committed to Toyota at Spa on the same weekend.

For the Fuji 500km, Bandoh have called up 21-year-old Toyota Young Driver Program (TDP) top star Kenta Yamashita to drive alongside Yuhi Sekiguchi in the WedsSport LC500.

2016 was a banner year for Yamashita, not only for winning the All-Japan Formula Three Championship, but for a star-making fourth-place finish in last year’s Macau Grand Prix that had the world buzzing.

In addition to his GT500 debut, which will come with his first one-off drive at the WedsSport team, Yamashita is one of five rookies making their Super Formula debut in 2017 – alongside fellow GT500 drivers Nick Cassidy and Jann Mardenborough, the multi-versatile Felix Rosenqvist, and reigning Formula 2 (GP2) champion Pierre Gasly.

Yamashita’s GT500 appointment leaves a vacancy in the #25 VivaC Toyota 86 MC of defending GT300 champions VivaC Team Tsuchiya.

Team Tsuchiya will thus nominate their reserve driver, and reigning Porsche Carrera Cup Japan champion, Tsubasa Kondo to the vacant seat – to partner Takamitsu Matsui in Yamashita’s absence.

Image Credits: Toyota