Hirate began karting in 1999 at the age of 13. He won the All Japan Junior Kart Championship and placed third and fifth respectively in successive All Japan Kart Championship seasons, also taking third in the FIA Oceania Championship. Moving to cars, he raced for the TOM'S Spirit team in Formula Toyota, finishing second in the championship with four wins and marking himself as one of Japan's most promising young single-seater prospects.
In 2003 Hirate joined Prema Powerteam in Formula Renault 2.0 Italia, winning once in his debut season. He took six wins in 2004 and finished second in the Italian Formula Renault standings. He made early appearances in the Formula 3 Euro Series with Prema before joining Team Rosberg for a full 2005 campaign, finishing eleventh overall. That result was sufficient to earn him a Toyota Formula One test driver appointment for 2006.
Racing for Manor Motorsport in the 2006 Formula 3 Euro Series, Hirate improved substantially — one win, five podiums, and a third-place finish in the championship — while simultaneously carrying out F1 test duties for Toyota. He retained the Toyota F1 test role into 2007, continuing that programme alongside a GP2 Series campaign with Trident Racing in which he recorded one podium across the season.
Hirate returned to Japan in 2008, competing in both Formula Nippon and Super GT. Driving for Team Impul in Formula Nippon, he finished fourth in 2008 including one race win, and fifth in both 2009 and 2010. He recorded additional wins in the series in 2010 and continued in what became Super Formula through 2013, accumulating further podiums with Cerumo/INGING.
Hirate's primary competitive achievement came in Super GT. After initial GT300 outings in 2008 and his first full GT500 seasons from 2009, he settled with Lexus Team Cerumo in the GT500 class. In 2012 he took two wins and finished second in the championship. The following year, 2013, he won the GT500 championship with Lexus Team Cerumo, taking one win and four podiums across eight rounds.
After seasons with Lexus Team SARD in 2015 and 2016, Hirate won the championship a second time in 2016, again securing one win and four podiums to take the title — this time with SARD, giving him championship wins across two different Lexus operations. Further GT500 campaigns followed with NDDP Racing with B-Max from 2019 to 2021 and Kondo Racing from 2022 to 2023.
From 2022 Hirate added the Super Taikyu Series to his programme, racing for NISMO in the ST-Q class, which accommodates hydrogen-powered experimental machinery. He won multiple rounds in 2023. In 2024 he switched to the GT300 class with HELM Motorsports, then returned to GT300 competition with Kondo Racing in 2025, finishing second in the GT300 championship and taking two podiums — front-running form more than seventeen years after his first Super GT start.
Hirate holds a FIA Platinum driver categorisation, the highest tier assigned to professional racing drivers with extensive top-level career records. The designation reflects the depth of professional credentials accumulated across more than two decades of competition and restricts his eligibility for certain gentleman driver co-drive arrangements.
Hirate's recorded career total encompasses more than 300 race starts, 24 wins, 59 podiums, and 11 pole positions across all championships. Two Super GT GT500 titles, a Toyota Formula One test appointment, competitive European single-seater results, Formula Nippon wins, and continued front-running form in Japanese sportscar racing through his late thirties place him among the most accomplished drivers produced by the Japanese domestic racing system in the 2000s and 2010s.
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