Morning practice sessions were delayed due to abysmal weather worsened by poor visibility, and thereafter, all of the on-track sessions scheduled on Saturday were cancelled at last. As in the result of this decision, the official qualifying session for the both GT300 and GT500 classes were announced to start from 8:00 a.m., on Sunday, for 30-minutes each, and grid orders of the race should correspond to the best times marked at the sessions.

The race day at Autopolis greeted by cloudy sky, the rain had stopped already but both the ambient and road surface temperatures went down. At 8:00 a.m., qualifying sessions took place on the track where some puddles left from the rainfall yesterday. After the GT500-class time attack, #17 Astemo CIVIC TYPE R-GT (Koudai Tsukakoshi/Kakunoshin Ohta) sat in 4th, the highest among the CIVIC TYPE-R-GT squadron, and on down, #16 ARTA MUGEN CIVIC TYPE R-GT (Hiroki Otsu/Ren Sato) in 6th, #100 STANLEY CIVIC TYPE R-GT (Naoki Yamamoto/Tadasuke Makino) in 7th, #8 ARTA MUGEN CIVIC TYPE R-GT (Tomoki Nojiri/Nobuharu Matsushita) in 11th and #64 Modulo CIVIC TYPE R-GT (Takuya Izawa/Riki Okusa) in 15th to start the race.

At 1:00 p.m., with small patches of blue sky showing through the thin clouds and the tarmac getting completely dry, the 3-hour race was started. The forefront CIVIC runner, #17 car (Tsukakoshi) launching from the 4th grid quickly closed in on #14 car (ENEOS PRIME GR Supra) and robbed of its 3rd position after overtaking it at Turn-1 on Lap-6. #100 car (Makino), on the other hand, started catching up the ground rather slowly from 7th grid, and at about an hour after the start, moving up to 5th when the Safety Car (SC) was deployed.

On-Lap-35, #17 car (Tsukakoshi) and #100 car (Makino) came in for refueling and driver change. Unfortunately, #17 car (Ohta) was forced into retirement soon after. On Lap-38, #100 car was pushed out by #14 car while trying to pass it, and run into the barrier incurring some irreparable damage to the car.

#100 car (Yamamoto), now taking over the leading role of the CIVIC TYPE R-GT squadron, made its second stop after 60-laps but Yamamoto stayed in mission and returned the course resolutely focused at the steering. Right after this, #64 car (Izawa) went off at Turn-3 and SC duly came in, when #100 car (Yamamoto) shrewdly made its stop, moving up to virtual 3rd, and then started to chase #23 car (MOTUL AUTECH Z).

#100 car (Yamamoto) that had already accumulated the success weight (SW) up to 86kg and thus incurring the heaviest handicap of all, i.e., the fuel restrictor having the smallest diameter designated from the three levels predetermined in the regulation. The pursuit of #23 car having no such handicap in the form of fuel restrictor was way too hard a task for #100 car that began suffering from tire wear later on, and even allowing #3 car (Niterra MOTUL Z) with lighter SW to draw close behind.

#100 car (Yamamoto) tried its best to defend the attack from #3 car only to surrender on Lap-86, and dropped down to 4th that was maintained til to the end after running 92-laps in 3-hours from the start. #16 car (Otsu) finished 6th and earned series points as well. After the 7th round, #100 car (Yamamoto/Makino) accumulating its total point to 51, and is set to catch #36 car (au TOM’S GR Supra) with a total of 53-points in the forthcoming round at Mobility Resort Motegi where SW will be decreased to the half.

GT500 Race Result

GT300 Race Result

GT500 Ranking

GT300 Ranking