Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd. (FHI) and Subaru Tecnica International Inc. (STI) have established their policy for SUBARU Motorsport activities in 2011 and today announced the outline of their plans as follows.

SUPER GT Series
FHI and STI will support R&D SPORT from Kanagawa, a team lead by Director Shinji Motojima, in its participation in SUPER GT with the Legacy GT300. The series is renowned as Japan’s top motorsport category. The team will compete in each of the 8 rounds, starting at Okayama International Circuit in April and finishing at Twin Ring Motegi in October including an overseas round in Malaysia in June. They will also take part in a special race held at Fuji Speedway in November. Like last year, Tetsuya Yamano and Kouta Sasaki will be driving for the team.

Nurburgring 24-Hour Race
STI will enter the 24-hour race, which will be held at N?rburgring from 23 to 26 June, with touring cars. For its fourth consecutive year of challenge since 2008, this year, a car modified to 24-hour-race specifications and based on the STI complete car ‘WRX STI tS’ will be used. This car will be developed focusing on thorough weight-saving, enhanced aerodynamic performance utilising its 4-door body and further improvements in the capability of the EJ20 turbo engine. After a shakedown in Japan, the car will be run in a short race in the VLN series for the setting to be finalised before it goes into the 24-hour final race on 25 and 26 June. Following last year, General Manager of the Vehicle Experiment Department at STI, Hideharu Tatsumi, will take the helm of the development of the car and team operations as team manager. The team will bring on board the experienced Toshihiro Yoshida, who has been in this race since 2008, as its driver. The team structure including other drivers has yet to be decided.

International Rallies
As was announced in December last year, FHI and STI will actively support SUBARU customers who partake in international rallies, such as the FIA Production Car World Rally Championship (PWRC) and the Intercontinental Rally Challenge (IRC) in 2011. For the PWRC, a ‘SUBARU Challenge Award’ has been established, and prizes will be awarded to the top-three finishers of each event as well as the season overall. Toshi Arai, FIA PWRC Champion in 2005 and 2007, will appear in a few rounds in the 2011 IRC, starting with Round 3 in Argentina on 11 to 13 March. Details on this will be announced separately.