Focus on Keiko Ihara and Satoshi Hoshino
Making a welcome return to the FIA World Endurance Championship for the Super Season’s visit to Japan is Keiko Ihara.
One of the few Japanese women to race internationally, Ihara was a regular competitor in the WEC from 2012 to 2014, competing in the LMP2 category. She makes her comeback to world-class competition in the No.50 Larbre Competition Ligier JSP217-Gibson alongside Erwin Creed and Romano Ricci.
Born and bred in Tokyo, Keiko was always determined and achieved all her goals once she set her mind to something. She became a motorsport fan when she visited a circuit for a job as a “Benetton F1 Image girl”, and did her apprenticeship as a driver in junior single-seaters, achieving her best results in the very competitive British F3 Championship in 2005.
Alongside this, Keiko has also raced in Super GT, Le Mans Endurance Series, the Aston Martin Asia Cup, Formula Le Mans Cup and Asian Le Mans Series broadening her experience in different types of cars.
The fan-favourite will bring valuable Fuji experience to the rookie pairing at Larbre, having won that round of the 2014 Asian Le Mans Series for Oak Racing, together with Ho-Pin Tung and David Cheng.
The sixth Japanese driver on the entry list is Satoshi Hoshino who will make his debut in the WEC (outside Le Mans) with Dempsey-Proton Racing in the No.88 Porsche 911 RSR, teamed Giorgio Roda and Matteo Cairoli.
The hugely experienced driver has raced in many different championships, principally in Japan, but has top class endurance experience at both the 24 Hours of Le Mans (2015 test day with KCMG) and that same year in the GTD class at the Daytona 24 Hours.
Hoshino’s principal racing activities in recent years have been in Porsches, and he has enjoyed multiple class honours in the Porsche Carrera Cup Japan. He is very familiar with Fuji and his most recent success was a podium finish at the track last year in the Blancpain GT Asia Series.
