Okayama SUPER GT: Rookie Toyota wins thrilling opener

Starting from pole, Kazuya Oshima and Kenta Yamashita repeated their 2021 victory in the 82-lap contest at the former Pacific Grand Prix venue despite a scare in the final stages when the pace of the #14 GR Supra suddenly dropped after a late Full Course Yellow period.

What was a 10-second advantage quickly disappeared in the four-lap dash to finish, giving two-time GT500 champion Naoki Yamamoto a whisker of opportunity in the Kunimitsu Honda.

Ultimately, Yamashita had enough of a buffer to keep Yamamoto at bay, taking the chequered flag with just over a second in hand to take an early lead in the championship.

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Earlier in the race, a thrilling battle ensued behind the Rookie Toyota for the best-of-the rest honours, culminating in Yamamoto pulling off a brilliant double move on Kazuki Hiramine's Impul Nissan and Hiroaki Ishiura's Cerumo Toyota.

With Ishiura trying to pass the struggling Hiramine with 10 laps to run, Yamamoto sensed an opportunity and launched his Honda up the inside into Turn 5, passing both cars in one attempt to move up to second in the Honda he shares with Tadasuke Makino.

The new Nissan Z made a strong debut in SUPER GT following an impressive late charge from Tsugio Matsuda in the #23 NISMO car he shared with Ronnie Quintarelli, having emerged from the pits down in eighth place.

Ishiura and Yuji Tachikawa finished fourth in the Cerumo Toyota, ahead of the second #3 NISMO Nissan of Katsumasa Chiyo and Mitsunori Takaboshi and the #36 TOM'S Toyota of Sho Tsuboi and Giuliano Alesi.

The Impul Nissan of Hiramine and Bertrand Baguette continued to drop positions in the final part of the race, finishing seventh ahead of the SARD Toyota of Nakayama and Yuhi Sekiguchi that had started on the front row but also struggled for pace on old tyres.

Two more Hondas completed the top 10, with the Real Racing car of Koudai Tsukakoshi and Nobuharu Matsushita leading home the ARTA machine of Tomoki Nojiri and Nirei Fukuzumi.

Kondo Nissan victorious in GT300

Victory in the GT300 class went to Joao Paulo de Oliveira and Kiyoto Fujinami in the #56 Kondo Racing Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3, while pitstop drama left the pole-sitting Subaru tumbling down the order.

At the start of the race, Fujinami made a rapid getaway from from fifth on the grid to immediately put himself into podium contention, before passing the #10 Gainier Nissan of rookie Riki Okusa to move up to second.

The #61 R&D Sport Subaru driven by Takuto Iguchi was still comfortably in the lead at this point, but the reigning champion’s pace on Dunlop tyres started to drop towards the end of the stint, bringing Fujinami into play.

With the pit window about to open, Fujinami wasted no time to pass the Subaru for the lead, going around the outside of Iguchi into Turn 5 to gain the inside line into the following left-hander.

From there on, Fujinami and teammate de Oliveira faced little trouble until the chequered flag, the 2020 championship-winning duo repeating their Okayama win from 2021 to take an early lead in the standings.

The Subaru, however, hit trouble during its mandatory pitstop, with Hideki Yamauchi stalling the car after taking over the driving duties from teammate Iguchi. Several seconds passed before Yamauchi could restart the engine and get going again, dropping the Subaru to 10th at the finish.

Subaru’s troubles promoted the #18 UpGarage Honda NSX GT3 of Takashi Kobayashi and rookie Kakunoshin Ota to second, with a well-timed pitstop from Pacific/Car Guy team initially promoting the #9 Ferrari 488 GT3 of Kei Cozzolino and Naoki Yokomizo to third.

An early pitstop propelled the LEON Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Naoya Gamou and Takuro Shinohara to fourth, before Gamou passed the Pacific CarGuy Racing Ferrari 488 GT3 for the final podium spot.

Team LeMans scored its first ever points in the GT300 class, with Satoshi Motoyama and Yoshiaki Katayama climbing to fifth in the #6 Audi R8 LMS GT3 having started the race down in 12th.

The new BMW M4 entered by Team Studie was running inside the top five until factory driver Augusto Farfus was pitched into the gravel by ARTA Honda rookie Iori Kimura, who completely misjudged the braking point into the Turn 5 hairpin - causing the second FCY of the race.

The first came after a collision between Shinichi Takagi's K-tunes Racing Lexus RC F GT3 and and Kondo Nissan GT500 driver Kohei Hirate, which eventually resulted in Takagi's bonnet coming loose, causing the veteran to crash approaching Turn 1 and retire from the race.

GT500 race results: