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Toyota adds W Series graduate Koyama to junior programme

Toyota has announced that W Series alumnus Miki Koyama has joined its domestic driver training programme and will race in the Formula Regional Japanese series this year.

Miki Koyama

Miki Koyama

Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

Koyama participated in the first two seasons of W Series, finishing seventh overall in the inaugural season in 2019 but slumping to 14th last year, and therefore missing out on an automatic invitation to return in 2022.

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But now the 24-year-old from Yokohama has been signed as the first-ever female driver on Toyota's TGR-DC young driver scheme, and will race in Formula Regional Japan for the Super License team.

Koyama previously raced in the championship in 2020 at Fuji in a one-off outing for Zap Speed, scoring a best finish of fifth. Last year, she also made one Super Formula Lights appearance for B-Max Engineering before returning to Europe to contest W Series.

Miki Koyama, B-Max Engineering

Miki Koyama, B-Max Engineering

Photo by: Masahide Kamio

Super License took another female racer, Ai Miura, to second in the Formula Regional Japan standings last year behind Yuga Furutani.

Koyama joins a trio of TOM'S Super Formula Lights racers on the TGR-DC roster for this season: Kazuto Kotaka, Hibiki Taira and another newcomer to the scheme, Japanese Formula 4 champion Seita Nonaka.

While Kotaka and Taira will focus exclusively on SF Lights this year, Nonaka takes on a dual programme as he will also contest the GT300 class of SUPER GT with Tsuchiya Engineering.

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Taira finished fifth in the standings in his rookie SF Lights season last year with TOM'S, scoring four podiums, and tested a Super Formula car for the Toyota-affiliated Rookie Racing squad at Suzuka.

Hibiki Taira, TOM'S

Hibiki Taira, TOM'S

Photo by: Masahide Kamio

Nonaka was seventh with three podiums, having replaced Kotaka for all but the final round of the season as the latter focused on replacing the largely-absent Kamui Kobayashi at KCMG in Super Formula.

Rin Arakawa, who finished as runner-up in Japanese F4 to Nonaka last year, stays in the category with the TOM'S-run TGR-DC team in 2022 alongside two new teammates, karting graduates Jin Nakamura and Ryoma Henzan.

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