Yamashita and his teammate aboard the #14 Rookie Toyota GR Supra, Kazuya Oshima, commanded the 82-lap race, with Oshima opening a comfortable lead in his stint from pole before handing off to Yamashita.
However, a late full-course yellow period almost ended up costing the team the win as Yamashita lost a major chunk of time to the chasing Team Kunimitsu Honda NSX-GT of Naoki Yamamoto.
In the end, Yamashita – who had been leading by more than 10 seconds heading into the closing stages – held on by just 1.8s from Yamamoto at the finish.
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Post-race, he revealed that contact with the car ahead of him on track after the full-course yellow, the Team LeMans Audi R8 LMS GT3 of Yoshiaki Katayama, almost proved disastrous.
“Oshima was really quick in his stint,” said Yamashita. “Before the race I said, ‘I’ll be happy if you can hand over to me with a 10-second advantage’, and in the end he handed over with 17 seconds, so I felt I had no choice but to win.
“I wanted to…
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