What was expected to be a single car collaboration between GoodSmile Racing and Black Falcon will be extended a bit for the TOTAL 24 Hours of Spa, with the Japanese company putting its art in all three cars that the German team will run in Belgium.
Itashas, as the anime-themed cars are known, are quite the thing in a Japan that has anime and manga as an integral part of their modern culture, be them on road or race cars, and although the West has quite the appreciation for it, it doesn’t reflect too much in practical terms, even in the sponsor-filled racing machines, which is why the anime army that will be the Black Falcon effort will attract a lot of attention in late July.
The No. 00 Mercedes AMG GT3 which will race under the GoodSmile Racing & Type-Moon Racing will stick to its previously announced Fate-themed livery as the series completes its 15th anniversary, although it will have a few revisions compared to its test livery. Drivers were previously announced too, as Nobuteru Taniguchi and Tetsuya Kataoka will have the company of Adam Christodoulou in the car. This means some drastic changes for GSR since their last Spa run in 2017, when RAM Racing did the entry running and Kamui Kobayashi was their third driver in a Hatsune Miku-themed Mercedes.
The No. 04 Mercedes AMG GT3 will race under the Mercedes AMG Team Black Falcon, expected to be the lead car as it is their Intercontinental GT Challenge entrant for Mercedes, and will be themed with the anime film Promare, a joint work between Toho Animation, Trigger and XFLAG that was screened earlier this year in Japan and will be aired in other parts of the World later on. The 2019 Blancpain GT Endurance Cup title winning trio of Yelmer Buurman, Maro Engel and Luca Stolz will be kept untouched, meaning it will be a strong contender for overall honors.
The No. 06 Mercedes AMG GT3 will be a Team Black Falcon one, being the Silver Cup entry of the German team, being the one that will carry the Hatsune Miku livery, which confirms a late return for the Vocaloid as a sponsor, though it will be unusually separated from the Taniguchi-Kataoka duo, with Blancpain GT Endurance Cup regulars Hubert Haupt, Patrick Assenheimer and Gabriele Piana having Abdulaziz Al Faisal as the fourth driver for the occasion.
The 2019 TOTAL 24 Hours of Spa will be held on July 26th and 27th, with a record number of 72 cars set to take part in the race.
IMAGE - GoodSmile Company
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