- Verstappen tested Nissan Z GT500 at Fuji Speedway, and wants a race seat.
- Super GT’s calendar has no standout single race, and that is the problem.
- Sepang wildcard entry exists as theoretical pathway, but nothing confirmed.
Max Verstappen says he wants to race in Japan’s Super GT series, but a gap in the championship’s structure is making that difficult.
The four-time Formula 1 world champion spoke about his ambitions ahead of the 2026 Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka, days after driving a Nissan GT500 car at a wet Fuji Speedway test.
His interest is genuine. His schedule, however, is complicated.
A rainy afternoon in a Nissan
The story began not in a press conference room, but in the pits at Fuji Speedway.
Max Verstappen rolled out in a Red Bull-liveried Nissan Z GT500 during the second day of manufacturers’ testing. It was a promotional programme organised by Red Bull, and Honda and Nissan were both present that day.
He shared driving duties with Kondo Racing regular Atsushi Miyake and completed only a handful of laps before the rain made further running difficult.
The car he drove is not a typical GT machine. The Nissan Z NISMO GT500 runs a 2.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder engine that produces around 550 hp.
It weighs just 1,020 kg and can exceed 300 km/h. By some measures, it is more powerful than a Hypercar prototype.
However, it was not Verstappen’s first time in a Super GT car. In November 2022, he drove a Honda NSX-GT at Mobility Resort Motegi during that year’s Honda Racing Thanks Day.
The Fuji run, though, was his first in Nissan colours and his first under a Red Bull programme.
Despite the rain cutting the session short, Verstappen spoke warmly about the experience in the Suzuka paddock.
“It was a lot of fun,” he said via Motorsport. “Just a shame that it was raining quite a bit, so I couldn’t do that many laps. I would have liked to do more laps. But it’s a fantastic car, a fantastic category in general.”
He added that feeling grip levels in the wet, on tyres so different from what he uses in Europe, made the outing worthwhile on its own terms.
“I would love to race these cars”
The next question in the Suzuka paddock was pretty much obvious. Would he consider entering a Super GT race?
Verstappen did not say no. But he set out a clear condition.
“Who knows, I need to see. It’s a great category. I wish they had a bit more of a standout one race, instead of just a championship,” he said. “If that would be the case, it’s easier to commit to one. I cannot do a whole championship. And to do one race in a championship sometimes is also not the right thing.”
Then he revealed just how seriously he takes the category. “I would love to race these cars,” he said. “It really reminds me of how the old DTM Class 1 cars used to be, and that’s what you also really liked watching.”
That comparison is telling. The old Class 1 DTM cars shared technical regulations with GT500 machinery and were widely praised as some of the most spectacular touring cars of their generation.
Verstappen was not flattering the series with small talk. He was placing it in a lineage he genuinely admires.
The problem Super GT has not yet solved
Verstappen’s words at Suzuka point to a real structural gap. The 2026 Super GT season runs eight races across seven venues.
Six of those races cover 300 km, pretty much the same as a Formula 1 Grand Prix. Two are timed endurance rounds of three hours each.
The Sepang round in Malaysia stands out as the only race held outside Japan. The Fuji GT 3 Hours draws a large crowd during Golden Week. But no single event dominates the calendar the way Le Mans dominates endurance racing, or Monaco dominates Formula 1.
Without that kind of landmark, there is no obvious moment for a guest entry to land. Max Verstappen is already racing beyond F1 in 2026. He has competed in NLS events at the Nürburgring and has the 24 Hours there on his schedule.
A full Super GT season sits far outside what his commitments allow.
Could there be a silver lining
One possible opening does exist. After Sepang returned to the calendar last year, organisers floated the idea of a wildcard GT500 entry in 2026.
That project was described at the time as a work in progress, with no manufacturer yet committed to supplying or running a car. In theory, Verstappen could race at Sepang on June 20-21, in the gap between the F1 rounds in Barcelona and Austria.
There are complications, though. The wildcard concept is primarily intended to promote Malaysian talent. Any role for Verstappen would likely need external backing, probably from Red Bull.
A manufacturer would also need to agree to supply and run the car. Nissan scaled back its GT500 programme from four to three cars this season because of financial pressures, which may give it room to support such a project.
Notably, Nissan was also the manufacturer involved in Verstappen’s Fuji test, which suggests a working relationship already exists.
Whether any of this comes together may ultimately depend on something bigger than a race entry.
Verstappen has said publicly that he has some life decisions to make and that his enthusiasm for Formula 1 is not what it once was.
If he does step back from F1 at some point, Super GT would almost certainly be on his list.
For now, the desire is real, and the car has left an impression. What Super GT still needs is the one race that would give a driver like Verstappen a reason to say yes without hesitation.
