Wadoux, who became the first female driver to score a class victory in the World Endurance Championship at Spa earlier in April, will share a Ferrari 296 GT3 entered under the PONOS Racing banner with Japanese racing veteran Kei Cozzolino in the GT300 class next year.
Wadoux has risen to the spotlight following two promising seasons in WEC, first in LMP2 and then in GTE Am, and was promoted to Ferrari’s factory GT roster at the start of the year.
Her move to SUPER GT comes as a surprise, as a third consecutive season in WEC was seen as the most obvious choice for the 22-year-old.
But Wadoux was curiously absent from the list of six drivers announced by AF Corse, Ferrari’s designed team in the new LMGT3 class, for its 2024 programme at the start of the year.
AF Corse does have two vacant seats in Hypercar after receiving the permission to run a third Ferrari 499P on a customer basis next year, and although Wadoux got to sample the car in Bahrain earlier this month, she has stressed that she needs more testing before she can step up to the top class.
It remains to be seen if the Frenchwoman will combine a maiden campaign in the eight-round SUPER GT series with a drive in a championship other than WEC.
Wadoux’s team-mate in SUPER GT will be veteran racer Cozzolino, who last raced in the Japanese series in 2022 with CarGuy Racing before diverting his focus to GT World Asia, Michelin Le Mans Cup and selected WEC rounds this year.
The outfit they will be racing for will be called PONOS Racing in deference to the video game company owned by gentleman driver Yorikatsu Tsujiko, who will serve as the team’s general director.
Nissan GT300 squad Gainer was linked with running a Ferrari next season, but the identity of the team behind the PONOS effort remains unclear.
PONOS Corporation sponsored Gainer’s #10 Nissan GT-R GT3 car driven by Riki Okusa and Hironobu Yasuda in 2023.
The PONOS entry means Ferrari will be represented in SUPER GT again, having disappeared from the series after 2022 following the end of CarGuy Racing’s collaboration with Pacific Racing - which went on to join forces with Mercedes-AMG this year.
2024 will also mark the first appearance of the new Ferrari 296 in SUPER GT, with CarGuy Racing/Pacific Racing competing with the previous-generation 488 GT3 until their split in 2022.
