It was hard to miss the bright baby blue Yogibo NSX GT3 in its first year of competition in 2021. With former Direxiv boss Haga helming the effort, the squad made an impact with its imaginative promotional efforts with Yogibo’s line of cushions and bean bags.
The on-track results however were rather less impressive. Ryo Michigami and Shogo Mitsuyama managed to get into the points just once all year, finishing sixth at Sugo, and at the end of the year Yogibo and partner squad Drago Corse went their separate ways.
Fast forward a further 12 months, and Yogibo is back on the grid with an NSX GT3 Evo2 being run by Servus Japan, and with a fresh new driver line-up comprising two promising rookies.
That followed a one-year diversion into the GT World Challenge Asia series with a Ferrari 488 GT3 run by B-Max Racing, which Haga says was a decision taken as the Japanese distributor of Yogibo products, WebShark, bought out the US-based main company in late 2021.
“From the start, Yogibo Racing has aimed to secure entry rights for SUPER GT,” explains Haga. “Doing so is a difficult process, and for many different reasons in 2022 we weren’t able to do it. Around the same time, we [as WebShark] acquired the original Yogibo company, and so we had the idea of racing outside of Japan, in Asia.
“We gained valuable experience by racing overseas for one series, but our goal was always to return to SUPER GT, and we were able to gain the entry rights for this year. We worked hard without giving up to come back here.”
Yogibo was able to get back on to the SUPER GT grid by buying out the ARTA GT300 effort, meaning the team’s NSX GT3 Evo2 is the same one that won the final race of last year at Motegi with Hideki Mutoh and Iori Kimura (above). Yokohama was chosen as the tyre supplier, putting Yogibo on the same footing as the other NSX GT3 user on the grid, Team UpGarage.
“We were certain they would be a good partner that we can trust and rely on, which is why we made our deal,” says Haga. “In principle, we don’t share data [with UpGarage], but Servus is very familiar with the NSX, and that will really help us to get good results this year.”
Yogibo’s philosophy is fostering young talent. Haga herself is in her early 40s, making her one of the younger team bosses on the grid. Chief engineer Shintaro Okajima is 30, although he already has three seasons of experience under his belt with ARTA. And the drivers, Japanese Formula 4 graduates Reimei Ito and Yugo Iwasawa, are 22 and 21 respectively.
Iwasawa was the more successful of the pair last season, finishing fifth in the standings, two places clear of Ito. Those results made them the highest-ranked drivers not affiliated with either Honda or Toyota, whose junior drivers have come to dominate the series.
“Our two drivers were really fast last year and caught my eye,” says Haga. “They are very flexible and they are absorbing everything. You can tell they are making new discoveries all the time with their feedback. They have to gain experience, and that will take time, but they are already improving with every test session and I expect them to deliver good results.”
Haga says that picking an experienced driver wouldn’t have fit in with Yogibo’s mission to nurture young talent quite as well — an ethos that echoes Haga’s former role as the public face of Direxiv, which sponsored many youngsters in both Europe and Japan in the mid-2000s.
“We did consider going with a combination of a veteran and a youngster, because it’s difficult for rookies with the GT500s and GT300s racing at the same time,” adds Haga. “But we wanted to find young, talented drivers and give them the chance to drive.
“Yogibo does not have any intrinsic connection to motorsport, but we want to be a breath of fresh air, to give young drivers chances that they might not get otherwise and allow them to grow. If there was a driver who succeeded overseas having started off at Yogibo Racing, that would be really significant for me, so that will be one of my aims for the future.
“I want other drivers to come to think of us that driving for Yogibo Racing will be a big step for their future. This season I will continue to follow Japanese F4 with interest.”
While Yogibo won’t be racing in GT World Challenge Asia this year, Haga says she is open to future opportunities to compete overseas in future. But more than anything, she is keen to emphasise that, unlike in 2021, Yogibo is here to stay in SUPER GT for the long haul.
Armed with an entry of its own and a partnership with Servus, which ran the ARTA GT300 effort with great success for so many years, there’s no reason to think why the squad couldn’t eventually achieve similar status to other established fan favourite teams like Goodsmile Racing.
“For me personally, the most important thing is to stay in SUPER GT and do well, as we finally gained the entry rights,” underlines Haga. “We will always be open to other chances to return to the world stage. But here, we are not a team that is going to leave soon; we want to win, get consistently good results and become a team with a long history.”
