From Clearly Lacking to Four Straight Wins: How Honda Turned the Prelude-GT Around

In May, after the second race of the season, Honda's GT500 project leader stood in the Fuji paddock and said the quiet part out loud. "We are clearly lacking in performance, and this situation has become even clearer," Tomohiro Onishi told reporters, as Sportscar365 reported. Five months later, the HRC Prelude-GT has won four Super GT races in a row and the No. 100 STANLEY car heads to the Motegi finale three points out of the title lead.

It is one of the sharper turnarounds in recent GT500 history, and Honda's own race reports, plus Sportscar365's coverage, show it was not luck. It came from a long break, a willingness to throw out a set-up philosophy and a change in how Honda Racing Corporation works with its teams.

A new car with a new body

The Prelude-GT replaced the Civic Type R-GT, which raced only in 2024 and 2025. When HRC revealed the prototype in fall 2025, Carscoops reported that it would run a 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder driving the rear wheels, with the road car's hybrid system nowhere in sight. A coupe makes a better starting point for a GT500 body than a five-door hatch, and 2026 rules opened more freedom in lower-body aerodynamics, according to Sportscar365's reporting cited by Carscoops.

Honda also changed its operation. It created a technical director role for race operations, filled by Akihiro Hasegawa, to oversee all five Honda GT500 teams, and embedded a dedicated HRC engineer with the No. 8 ARTA MUGEN car. "By delivering feedback from the track to the development side more quickly, we aim to achieve better race results," Hasegawa said in Honda's season preview.

Spring: sixth, fifth and a hard truth

The start was rough. Sportscar365 reported a best finish of sixth at the Okayama opener and fifth at the three-hour Golden Week race at Fuji, both by the No. 16 ARTA car of Tomoki Nojiri and Ren Sato, which finished 54 seconds behind the winning TOM'S Toyota GR Supra at Fuji.

Onishi did not dress it up. He said the gap to the top cars in the race matched the Prelude's overall performance level and suggested the No. 16 team was close to the ceiling of the current package. "We have to accept the reality that we are far away from the top," he said. He raised the idea of starting over: Honda might need to consider a completely different set-up concept during the coming break.

That break was long. The June round at Sepang was canceled, which left about three months between the May race at Fuji and the next round, also at Fuji, in August.

August: pole, then a one-two

The changes showed immediately. In qualifying for the Fuji 300km, Hondas took four of the top five spots in Q1, and Kakunoshin Ohta put the No. 8 ARTA car on pole with a 1:26.776, the Prelude-GT's first pole, Sportscar365 reported.

The race, run Aug. 1 and 2, started on a wet track behind the safety car and was red-flagged after a heavy crash for the No. 64 Modulo car's Igor Omura Fraga, who did not appear seriously hurt, according to Honda. On the restart, Naoki Yamamoto in the No. 100 STANLEY car drafted past Hiroki Otsu's No. 8 for the lead. The two Preludes ran different tire strategies, and Ohta closed to within a second of Tadasuke Makino on the final lap, but the No. 100 held on. It was a one-two in the car's third race.

Makino credited the break directly. "The PRELUDE-GT had struggled up to this point, but we used the nearly three-month break to review even the smallest details, and I feel that enabled everyone to deliver this result," he said in Honda's report. Onishi said HRC had reviewed areas it would not normally have time to address, though he also noted that success weight had worked in Honda's favor at that round.

Suzuka, SUGO and Autopolis

Three weeks later at Suzuka, Honda locked out the top four grid spots and swept the podium. The No. 16 ARTA MUGEN car won after Ren Sato passed the No. 17 Astemo car and a lapped GT300 car in one move on Lap 37, with No. 17 second and No. 8 third. It was Sato's first Super GT win and Nojiri's 12th, the most among active drivers. Sato said the car had improved since Fuji thanks to HRC continuing to refine areas including the set-up concept.

At SUGO on Sept. 20, the No. 17 Astemo car of Koudai Tsukakoshi and Yuto Nomura won with an undercut during a safety car period, Nomura's first win in his debut GT500 season, with the No. 100 car third. That made three in a row.

The fourth came at Autopolis on Oct. 18 in a three-hour race with two mandatory stops. Yamamoto stretched the No. 100's first stint while saving fuel, which shortened its second refueling stop, and Makino held off championship leader Sho Tsuboi's Toyota and the rest of the lead pack to the finish. Onishi pointed out that the car won while carrying full success weight and a restricted fuel flow.

What changed, as far as Honda has said

Honda has not published a list of technical changes, and nobody outside HRC knows exactly what moved. What the record shows is a process: a candid admission in May, an unplanned three-month window used for development work the normal calendar does not allow, a revised set-up concept that drivers credited by August, and a team structure built to get information from the track to the engineers faster.

The season finale at Mobility Resort Motegi, scheduled for Nov. 6 to 8 and combining Rounds 3 and 8, decides whether that turnaround ends with a title. Yamamoto said qualifying will be extremely important there. Whatever happens, the Prelude-GT has already answered the question Onishi asked in May.