Some circuits host drift events. Ebisu is drifting. It's carved into the hills of Fukushima Prefecture and has been a pilgrimage site for sideways driving for decades, and in late September 2025 it hosted rounds 5 and 6 of the D1 Grand Prix. It was our first D1 round, and we couldn't have picked a better place to start. The photo at the top is the man who won the whole season: Hideyuki Fujino in the #66 Team Toyo Tires Drift GR86, laying smoke at the top of the course.
Why Ebisu matters
Ebisu isn't one track. It's a cluster of short, technical courses stacked on a mountainside, with grandstand banks that put you almost on top of the action. The D1 layout runs downhill into a fast entry, and the concrete walls sit close enough that every inch of proximity reads from the spectator banks. Smoke hangs in the valley, sponsor flags line the ridge, and the sound bounces off the trees. Nowhere else feels like it.
And this is what that closeness looks like at full commitment: Masato Kawabata, no lifts, through Ebisu's entry.
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Rounds 5 and 6: the results
The weekend ran over 27 and 28 September. Round 5 went to Hideyuki Fujino in battle, with Koudai Sobagiri topping solo qualifying. Fujino beat rookie Ryu Nakamura's pink #76 S13 in the semifinal and Sobagiri in the final. On Sunday the order flipped: Hokuto Matsuyama took the solo run and Sobagiri won the battle bracket. Fujino went on to claim the 2025 championship, his third D1 title, in the 2JZ-powered #66 GR86.
The red car above is a legend in its own right: Daigo Saito's #87 Fat Five Racing Toyota GR Supra, also running a 2JZ. Saito brought the Supra out from round 5, right here at Ebisu. He was the 2012 Formula Drift champion in the US, and few drivers have ever had more style at full lock. In the line-up, Ryo Ishii's #50 BuzzBreak Mark II heads Hisashi Saito's #38 Miyaseimitsu S15, which runs a custom four-rotor engine, and Masakazu Doi's stars-and-stripes #98 S13.
Want to see where Saito's cars live? We spent Christmas at his garage: Christmas BBQ at Fat Five Racing.
Round 5 · Saturday 27 September 2025
Battle (tsuiso)
| Pos | No. | Driver | Car |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | #66 | Hideyuki Fujino | Toyota GR86 |
| 2 | #31 | Koudai Sobagiri | Toyota GR86 |
| 3 | #76 | Ryu Nakamura | Nissan Silvia S13 |
| 4 | #99 | Naoki Nakamura | Toyota GR86 |
| 5 | #87 | Daigo Saito | Toyota GR Supra |
| 6 | #9 | Tetsuya Kume | Nissan Silvia S15 |
| 7 | #2 | Seimi Tanaka | Nissan Silvia S15 |
| 8 | #81 | Kenshiro Wada | Nissan Silvia S15 |
Final: Fujino beat Sobagiri on proximity at the entry. Semifinals: Fujino beat Ryu Nakamura, who made contact on the rerun; Sobagiri beat Naoki Nakamura, whose GR86 spun with a broken driveshaft. Daigo Saito's third in the solo run came on the Supra's debut weekend.
Solo run (tanso), top 5
| Pos | No. | Driver | Car | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | #31 | Koudai Sobagiri | Toyota GR86 | 98.77 |
| 2 | #76 | Ryu Nakamura | Nissan Silvia S13 | 98.49 |
| 3 | #87 | Daigo Saito | Toyota GR Supra | 98.42 |
| 4 | #99 | Naoki Nakamura | Toyota GR86 | 98.42 |
| 5 | #70 | Masashi Yokoi | Nissan Silvia S15 | 98.29 |
Round 6 · Sunday 28 September 2025
Battle (tsuiso)
| Pos | No. | Driver | Car |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | #31 | Koudai Sobagiri | Toyota GR86 |
| 2 | #99 | Naoki Nakamura | Toyota GR86 |
| 3 | #90 | Mao Yamanaka | Toyota GR Supra |
| 4 | #18 | Tetsuya Hibino | Toyota GR86 |
| 5 | #88 | Masato Kawabata | Toyota GR86 |
| 6 | #66 | Hideyuki Fujino | Toyota GR86 |
| 7 | #9 | Tetsuya Kume | Nissan Silvia S15 |
| 8 | #80 | Yuki Tano | Toyota GR86 |
Final: Sobagiri beat Naoki Nakamura. Semifinals: Naoki Nakamura beat Yamanaka, and Sobagiri beat Hibino.
Solo run (tanso), top 5
| Pos | No. | Driver | Car | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | #77 | Hokuto Matsuyama | Toyota GR Corolla | 99.38 |
| 2 | #70 | Masashi Yokoi | Nissan Silvia S15 | 98.16 |
| 3 | #31 | Koudai Sobagiri | Toyota GR86 | 97.94 |
| 4 | #90 | Mao Yamanaka | Toyota GR Supra | 97.90 |
| 5 | #88 | Masato Kawabata | Toyota GR86 | 97.85 |
Sobagiri left Ebisu leading the championship, ahead of Fujino, Yokoi and Kojiro Mekuwa. Fujino took the title back at the Odaiba finale in November. Results: D1 Corporation's official round 5 and round 6 reports.
The paddock
The paddock is half the reason to go. Team tents open straight onto the cars, and you can stand a metre from engines that make more power than most dyno sheets you'll ever see. Masakazu Doi's #98 Drift Star S13 sat under its eagle-print tent, with team-mate Yumeto Hatanaka's #75 Chaser JZX100 parked behind it. Rookie Takuya Inaoka's #8 Vehiql Racing × Valino 180SX had its bonnet up, and in the Team Toyo Tires Drift tent, rookie Shiina Tamaki's #14 Toyota 86 showed off its Nissan VR38DETT twin-turbo V6, the engine from the GT-R.
Toyota's big four-doors are still everywhere. Ryo Ishii's #50 BuzzBreak car and Tetsuro Nakata's red #30 Team TNR Lovca car are both JZX100 Mark IIs, Hatanaka races the JZX100 Chaser, and the orange Drift Taxi giving passenger rides between sessions is a JZX110 Mark II Grande. Two decades on, the Mark II family is still the soul of Japanese drifting.
Night work
When the sun dropped behind the ridge, the work didn't stop. Crews rebuilt suspension and swapped tyres under work lights: Team Toyo Tires on Masato Kawabata's #88 GR86 and Hokuto Matsuyama's #77 GR Corolla, Team Vertex on Takahiro Ueno's 2JZ-powered #78 Lexus RC. The second half of our gallery is unedited on purpose: this is what the weekend looked like as it happened.
More from the weekend
Why it matters
D1 is where Japanese drifting turned from street culture into a professional sport, and Ebisu is where that culture still feels closest to its roots. If you're planning a Japan trip around motorsport, put a D1 weekend at Ebisu at the top of the list. Bring a long lens, a portable battery and patience for the walk up the hill.
Photos: One Breath Pictures
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