B-Max Racing Team

Byobugaura Kogyo Co., Ltd. established the race division "B-Max Engineering" in 2009, and started participating in Super FJ and Porsche Carrera Cup Japan in 2010. Since then, the participation category has been expanded. Ryūji Kumita, the president and team representative, competes in the race himself under the pseudonym "Dragon".

In 2014, the team name was changed to "B-Max Racing Team" (Vehicle Division). In addition, B-Max Racing participate in the Japanese Formula 3 Championship.^[1] In November 2017, spun off from Byobugaura Kogyo Co., Ltd. as B-MAX RACING Co., Ltd.^[2]

The team have also participated in Super Formula Championship from 2017 with Takashi Kogure their first driver.^[3] In 2019, they participated in Super Formula with two cars, in collaboration with the German racing team Motopark Academy.^[4] For 2021, B-Max & Motopark ended their partnership, and the team did not race for first round of the season. Nobuharu Matsushita: joined B-Max Racing from the second round at Suzuka. He was initially denied an engine lease from Honda, after signing a factory racing contract with Nissan in the Super GT Series. This prevented him from racing in the opening round at Fuji. Honda would reverse their decision after Masaya Nagai replaced Hiroshi Shimizu as the Director of Motorsport at Honda.^[5] They planned to enter two cars, after running just one car for Nobuharu Matsushita in 2021. They confirmed on 4 March that they would continue to run one car, after a failed attempt to enter a non-Japanese driver in their second car, as 2021 Formula Regional Americas Championship champion Kyffin Simpson declined the opportunity offered by Honda Performance Development (Honda's United States motorsport operation, which supplies engines to the Formula 4 United States and Formula Regional Americas championships) to the series champion because of pandemic-related restrictions. ^[6] Raoul Hyman was awarded a Honda Super Formula scholarship for winning the 2022 Formula Regional Americas Championship title, and drove for B-Max Racing. The team is currently scheduled to downsize from running two cars in 2023 to a single-car entry in 2024, to be piloted by reigning Super Formula Lights champion Iori Kimura.^[7]

B-Max Racing venture in Super GT started in 2014 where they are set up with NDDP Racing which is the NISMO Nissan Driver Academy as they discontinued their partnership with Nova Engineering. Kazuki Hoshino as the leading senior driver, he has partnered up with Lucas Ordóñez, and Jann Mardenborough who won the Nissan Gran Turismo Academy. Mitsunori Takaboshi raced as well for two seasons. In 2018 NDDP Racing moved up to the GT500 class, entering as NDDP Racing with B-Max. They take the place of MOLA, who withdrew from the series at the end of 2017.^[8][9] B-Max formed an all-new driver lineup: Kohei Hirate transferred to Nissan and secured his return to GT500 after a seventeen-year association with Toyota, while former Honda GT500 driver Frédéric Makowiecki returned to the series for the first time since 2014.^[10] For 2020 Katsumasa Chiyo, who raced full-time in the Intercontinental GT Challenge for Nissan in 2019, returns to GT500 on a full-time basis at NDDP Racing with B-Max, replacing Makowiecki.^[11] In 2022, NISMO takes over the NDDP Team, thus ends B-Max Racing program in Super GT.

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

^‡ Half points awarded as less than 75% of race distance was completed.

† Koyama drove for BlackArts Racing Team in round 3.

‡ Guest driver

• Official website Archived 2021-06-15 at the Wayback Machine