The Hammerhead Became Tanuki, and Tanuki Just Won World Time Attack Again

Rain has a way of deciding time attack events without asking anyone's permission. At the 2026 Yokohama World Time Attack Challenge at Sydney Motorsport Park, wind and rain blew across Eastern Creek a little more than an hour before the Superlap Shootout, the session where the five fastest cars in the building line up for one last flying lap. Organizers suspended track action and let the dry times stand. That meant the lap that mattered had already been run: a 1:19.303 from Todd Hazelwood in the Tanuki Racing Nissan Silvia S13.

It was the only lap of the weekend under 1:20, according to Speedcafe, and it gave Tanuki Racing its second straight WTAC title. For a car that started life as one of the most famous time attack builds of the last decade, it is a strange and satisfying second act.

From Hammerhead to Tanuki

If the car looks familiar under the new livery, it should. Before it was Tanuki, it was the Hammerhead, the S13 that High Performance Academy calls one of WTAC's most iconic builds. Tim Slade drove it to back-to-back Pro Class wins in 2016 and 2017, and the list of people who have driven it reads like a Supercars and endurance racing roll call: Shane van Gisbergen, Earl Bamber, Warren Luff and Andre Heimgartner, per HPA.

When owner Wayne Lee took it on as Tanuki, the rebuild was deep enough that HPA described it as essentially a new car in many respects. The headline change was the engine. Out came the SR20VET, a turbocharged four-cylinder that made roughly 900 horsepower. In went Nissan's 4.1-liter VR38DETT twin-turbo V6, the GT-R engine family, which David Lenthall of GT Auto Garage told HPA made 1,080 horsepower at 25 psi with less stress on the parts.

That power came with a cost. Lenthall said the swap added weight, with 4 percent more of it sitting over the front axle. In a car that lives and dies on how it turns into fast corners, that is not a small thing to give up.

Electronics, aero and slicks

The old Autronic engine management went too. GT Auto Garage replaced it with a full MoTeC setup, largely because Lee and the crew running the car preferred it, HPA reported, and that package brought MoTeC's torque management tools with it. On a 1,000-plus horsepower rear-drive car, the ability to meter torque by gear and by corner is the difference between a lap and a spin.

The aero was redone as well. Andrew Brilliant of AMB Aero engineered a new wing package for the car, partly to update the Hammerhead's famous profile and partly to make Tanuki its own thing. A rule change that allowed slick tires finished the transformation. With Slade back behind the wheel, the rebuilt car ran 1:20.456, HPA noted, before a wheel failure took it out of that year's competition.

Enter the Bathurst winner

The missing piece was a driver. Todd Hazelwood won the 2024 Bathurst 1000 alongside Brodie Kostecki, and in 2025 Tanuki put him in the seat. He had barely met the car. "I only drove the car for the first time Friday last week," Hazelwood told Speedcafe after the 2025 event. Then, under the lights in the Shootout, he ran a 1:18.169, more than four seconds faster than anyone else in the Emtron Pro Class.

Hazelwood was honest about what that lap took. "This thing has been scaring me all week," he told Speedcafe at the time, describing a big moment of understeer through Turn 1 and a lap where he admitted he had probably overcommitted in the second to last sector. He thanked "Wayne (Lee) from Tanuki Racing for the opportunity" and said he could not wipe the smile off his face.

Defending it in 2026

Coming back as the benchmark is a different job. The official WTAC report from the end of day one had Hazelwood leading the Pro Class on a 1:20.572. Speedcafe reported that the team had tried a wider and taller rear tire and some suspension changes for the first day, and the car struggled. Hazelwood described poor mid-corner stability and a car that bounced badly under power.

So the crew went backward on purpose. For day two they returned to the tire setup that won in 2025, Speedcafe reported, and the car came alive. Hazelwood's 1:19.303 was not a match for his 2025 Shootout lap, but it was more than three seconds clear of the field. Alex Rullo was second in the Lamborghini Gallardo R-EX on 1:22.441, and Kunihiko Bando was third in the Lexus RSC300 on 1:23.874. Tim Slade, the Hammerhead's old pilot, set no time in his Nissan Skyline R33 after engine trouble early in the running.

Rain, and a lap that stood

WTAC's own recap did not hide the disappointment. The Superlap Shootout is the show, the moment when the fastest cars in the event go out one at a time for the crowd. Running slick-shod aero cars on a greasy track, the organizers wrote, would have been reckless, and many competitors made it clear they did not want to gamble their cars. "Trust us, we're gutted too," the organizers wrote.

Hazelwood felt the same. "To put a show on for the fans tonight would've been even more special," he told Speedcafe. He was just as blunt about the car itself: "it's bloody scary to drive but it's such a thrill at the same time."

He also made a point of crediting the shop. "I can't thank the whole team at GT Auto Garage [enough] for giving me a fast but reliable car," Hazelwood told Speedcafe. Reliability is the quiet part of time attack. A 1,000-horsepower car that runs one heroic lap and then breaks does not win WTAC. One that can run all weekend, absorb a setup experiment that does not work and come back the next morning faster usually does.

The rest of the leaderboard

The Pro Class result was not the only story in Sydney. Drew Hall won Plazmaman Pro Am in the Croydon Racing Developments Nissan R34 Skyline GT-R with a 1:26.379, holding off Aleck Kazakovski's Subaru WRX STI. Robert Nguyen won the MoTeC Pro Open class in the Dream Project Nissan Silvia S15 and broke his own class record, WTAC reported. Darren Bishop won GCG Open in an Evo 7, Alex Michalsky took Haltech Clubsprint in the Plazmaman Evo 6, and John Boston won the Yokohama Advan Tuner class in the Southern BM BMW M2 Competition.

Look at that list and the pattern is obvious. Silvias, Skylines, Evos and WRXs still run Australian time attack, from the grassroots classes all the way to the top. The fastest car at the biggest event in the sport is still, under everything, a 1980s Nissan coupe.

What comes next

Hazelwood told Speedcafe the team had set five lap records in the past 12 months and had hoped to add a sixth in Sydney. The rain took that chance away, and the 2025 lap remains the car's high water mark at Eastern Creek. "We'll come back next year and we'll try and get this record once again," he said. He also told Speedcafe his next trips are planned for Japan and the United States.

That is the part worth watching. The Hammerhead was built for one track and one event. Tanuki, with a GT-R engine, modern electronics and a Bathurst winner who has now learned the car properly, looks like it wants to find out how it stacks up away from home.