Cerumo recruits Kovalainen's title-winning engineer

Tanaka previously engineered ex-Formula 1 racer Heikki Kovalainen and Kohei Hirate to title success with Team SARD back in 2016.

He was then transferred to Team LeMans in the middle of the 2018 season following the shock death of that squad's long-time engineer Kenji Yamada.

After returning to SARD in 2019, Tanaka found himself replaced by Narunobu Makino amid the team's reshuffle ahead of the 2020 season, and moved to head up the newly-established Inging Motorsport Toyota GT300 team instead.

Now Tanaka has returned to the Toyota GT500 stable with Cerumo, the partner squad of Inging, where he will oversee Hiroaki Ishiura and Yuji Tachikawa's title bid.

Tanaka replaces Takuji Murata, who was Cerumo's chief engineer when it won its previous GT500 drivers' crown back in 2013, in the role.

Murata has been poached by Nissan to head up the Kondo Racing engineer staff this year, taking the place of Keisuke Negishi off the back of a difficult season for the team.

SARD meanwhile is going into the new campaign with yet another new engineer in the form of Shigenori Ara, who will oversee Kovalainen's bid for a second SUPER GT title.

Cerumo has also revealed a slightly revised livery for the new season, which it will use for this weekend's first official pre-season test at Okayama.