checked the overall performance of the racing car with Claude, here's the summary.
Overall it appears to have occasional pace and then not that much.
Race debut — Rd6 Okayama, 25–26 Oct 2025 (technically last season, but this is where it actually started racing): ST-Q class win, 3rd overall against the ST-2/ST-3 field, 95 laps in the 3-hour race, best lap 1:42.321, finished cleanly by Morizo himself — no mechanical trouble. The team had skipped the prior round (Autopolis) specifically to be ready for this.
2026 Rd1 Motegi, 21–22 Mar: Finished clean, no stoppages, 110 laps — about 1 lap off the pace of the ST-2 class winner (effectively ~5th-ish). Team still described an oversteer tendency and called the setup "unfinished," but reliability held up.
2026 Rd2 Suzuka, 19 Apr: I couldn't confirm whether the M Concept actually entered this round — I'm not going to guess.
2026 Rd3 Fuji 24 Hours, 6–7 Jun — the big one: This was the rough patch you may be sensing rumors of. Racing as car #28, the M Concept did not finish — classified 53rd, completed 473 laps against the 521-lap minimum-distance requirement (320 laps behind the leader). It was the only ST-Q entry that weekend that didn't finish — Rookie Racing's other development cars (a Subaru WRX-based mule, the Nürburgring-spec "GR Yaris DAT," and the hydrogen GR Corolla) all completed the race. It was a genuinely tough result at their marquee round.
2026 Rd4 SUGO, 4–5 Jul: Back out as the sole ST-Q entry, and took ST-Q pole position in qualifying (1:42.169) — a strong pace signal. I couldn't pin down the exact race-day finishing classification, though general coverage of that weekend describes a high finish rate across the field.
2026 Rd5 Autopolis, 25–26 Jul: M Concept sat this one out (same as it did at Autopolis in 2025). Rookie Racing instead ran two other GR Yaris ST-Q entries — the front-engine, Nürburgring-spec "GR Yaris DAT" cars — debuting a new "cornering ABS" and softer suspension. Worth flagging: it's easy to mix these up in coverage, since TGR/Rookie fields several distinct experimental GR Yaris/Corolla cars under the ST-Q banner each round, not just the midship one.
Remaining: Rd6 Okayama (24–25 Oct) and Rd7 Fuji (14–15 Nov) haven't happened yet.
Bottom line: it's a genuine mixed bag — good pace and clean finishes at the shorter sprint rounds (Motegi, Okayama debut, Sugo pole), but a real setback at the demanding 24-hour format, which is exactly the kind of race where an unfinished mid-engine development car's rough edges (braking/steering balance under sustained stress) would show up hardest.
