Both Kondo Racing drivers appeared in good shape after Saturday’s dry qualifying session, as Yamashita and Sacha Fenestraz took second and third on the grid behind poleman Tomoki Nojiri.
But the wet conditions of the race proved a different story, as Fenestraz finished a distant fourth and Yamashita came away with no points after pitting on lap 11 of 31, despite tyre changes not being mandatory.
Yamashita was running well inside the points in fourth at the time of his trip to the pits, having initially held second before being passed by both Tadasuke Makino and eventual race winner Nobuharu Matsushita.
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Speaking afterwards to Motorsport.com, Yamashita said that even if he had elected to stay out, his rear tyre struggles were so acute that he questioned if he would have scored points in either case.
“Within two or three laps of the start I could feel the rear tyres dropping and moving around, and the pace dropped a lot more than the cars around me,” he explained. “After discussing with the team, finally the team decided we should pit, so I came in, but it didn’t work.
“Whether or not we pitted, the pace was so bad that I don’t know if we could have stayed inside the top 10. I don’t know the reason why the tyres dropped so much, but that was the problem.
“I was surprised at how much they were moving and how much they dropped. It felt like I couldn’t drive properly anymore. But anyway, the tyre felt ‘weird’. I think some other drivers had no issues, so we need to find the cause.”
Inging driver Sho Tsuboi suffered an even worse drop-off than Yamashita, as he rose to fourth on the opening lap from sixth on the grid, only to plummet outside of the points positions before coming in to change tyres.
Tsuboi lost further time with an excruciatingly slow pitstop, finally finishing a lap down in 20th place.
“Suddenly I lost grip, and the pace dropped so much that I couldn’t do anything about it as a driver,” Tsuboi recalled to…
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