The 2026 AUTOBACS SUPER GT season kicked off at Okayama International Circuit on April 11–12. With the cherry blossoms in full bloom, James Pull fulfilled his lifelong ambition to make his debut in the GT300 class of Japan’s premier GT championship. The GT300 class features a wide variety of vehicles of different concepts and drivetrains such as GTA-GT300 and FIA-GT3 machines. In combination with the GT500 class, a total of 43 cars are entering the 2026 season. Pull is competing in the #48 Kenko K’s Frontier WM NILZZ GT-R of NILZZ Racing alongside gentleman racer Taiyo Ida. Ida is a veteran racing driver, who made his debut in 2011 in the Porsche Carrera Cup Japan and has won four ST-1 class championships in the Super Taikyu series. Ida has been active in SUPER GT since 2014, kicking off his tenth year with NILZZ Racing this season.

Despite being a rookie in the series, the team entrusted Pull with Q1 in qualifying. Due to the high number of cars, the GT300 category is split into two groups in Q1, with the fastest nine of each group advancing to Q2. With unusually warm mid-April air temperatures of 24°C and 34°C track temperatures, the team opted for an aggressive tyre warm-up strategy for the soft compound they have chosen. Since SUPER GT is an open-tyre series with a fierce competition of multiple manufacturers, the tyres play a key role. Just as Pull was getting his Yokohama ADVAN tyres up to temperature, the session got red-flagged due to a car stopping on track halfway into his Q1 group. As non-emergency tyre changes are prohibited in qualifying, Pull had to deal with tyres that already went through a heat cycle once the track was cleared, which compromised his qualifying efforts, resulting in P24 on the grid.

Come Sunday’s race day, the team had to deal with another issue. A problem with the ignition forced them to miss out on warm-up. After getting the ignition fixed, Pull tried to make it onto the grid in time. However, just as he was crossing the pit lane, the exit lights turned red. Pull tried to stop, but due to the pole position cars for the parade occupying the space, he got told to continue. A slight miscommunication error, resulting in a pit lane start as well as a 60-second stop-and-go penalty, heavily compromising the team’s race.

Despite that setback, Pull pushed hard while nursing the super soft tyres they had chosen for the race. Opting for a long stint, which saw him in the car for two-thirds of the 300 km season opener, Pull was the fourth fastest driver on average, highlighting his performance. But as the race went on without any Safety Car intermissions or other incidents, catching up with the ultra-competitive GT300 field was sheerly impossible following the penalty. Pull finished his stint as quickest of the Nissan NISMO GT-R GT3 contingent, when he came into the pits to hand the car to his teammate Ida, who brought the #48 Kenko K’s Frontier WM NILZZ GT-R home in P29.

James Pull:

“It’s been a difficult opening weekend because of all the issues we were facing. Even though the penalty robbed us of our chances of a points finish, our strong pace as the fastest of the Nissan NISMO GT-R GT3 entries is one of the positives we can take out of this weekend to come back even stronger for the next round at Fuji Speedway.”