Johor bahru: Johor Motorsports Racing (JMR) will once again field a star-studded all-professional driver line-up led by three-time Supercars champion Scott McLaughlin for the 50th Suzuka 1000km endurance race in Japan from Sept 11-13. McLaughlin will reunite with 24 Hours of Le Mans LMGT3 champion Nicky Catsburg and multiple International Motor Sports Association (IMSA) champion Alexander Sims to pilot JMR's Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R in the Pro category, after the trio secured a third-place finish on the team's Suzuka debut last year.
According to BERNAMA News Agency, JMR heads into this year's race with renewed confidence after claiming victory in the Pro-Am class at the 2026 CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa, strengthening its ambition of securing an overall victory at one of the world's most prestigious GT3 endurance events. Meanwhile, Malaysian royal brothers Tunku Panglima Johor Tunku Abdul Rahman Sultan Ibrahim and Tunku Putera Johor Tunku Abu Bakar Sultan Ibrahim will contest the Pro-Am category alongside British driver Ben Green, aiming to improve on their class podium finish at the 2025 Suzuka race.
McLaughlin, 33, is a three-time Australian Supercars champion (2018-2020) who now competes full-time in the INDYCAR Series with Team Penske, where he has twice finished third overall and has already recorded two runner-up finishes and a third-place result at this year's Indianapolis 500. Catsburg, 38, arrives in Japan fresh from winning the LMGT3 class at the 2026 24 Hours of Le Mans with TF Sport, while also challenging for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GTD Pro title with Corvette Racing. His Corvette Racing team-mate Sims, also 38, claimed victory at the Chevrolet Detroit Sports Car Classic earlier this season and currently sits fourth in the IMSA championship standings.
Tunku Abdul Rahman said the team had continued to grow from race to race and believed JMR was well positioned to challenge for an even stronger result than last year's podium. 'This year is about growing stronger together as a team. We showed good pace at Le Mans and won our class at the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa, which meant an enormous amount to us. Last year was our first appearance at Suzuka and we had two cars on the podium. This year we're hoping for an even stronger result,' Tunku Abdul Rahman said in a statement today, adding that the experience and calibre of McLaughlin, Catsburg and Sims would be crucial as JMR continued to build its long-term Pro programme.
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