Round 2 of the 2025 AUTOBACS SUPER GT series, the “FUJI GT 3 Hours RACE GW Special” was held on May 4th (Sun./Holiday) at Fuji Speedway (one lap 4,563m × 3 hours) in Shizuoka Prefecture. In fair weather with a clear view of Mt. Fuji, the GT500 class pole-starting No. 38 KeePer CERUMO GR Supra (Hiroaki Ishiura/ Toshiki Oyu) completed the 3-hour race without ever giving up the provisional lead to take a pole-to-finish win for the first time six years. In the GT300 class, when machine trouble struck the lead car on the last lap of the race, the No. 6 UNI-ROBO BLUEGRASS FERRARI (Yoshiaki Katayama/ Roberto Merhi Muntan) that had managed to move up to 2nd position in an unbelievable climb from a 28th position start won a dramatic first victory.

This 3-hour race of Round 2 at FUJI stands as the longest race of the 2025 season. With fine weather on race day, some 49,200 spectators turned out to watch a long three hours of fierce competition unfold.

At the start, it was Oyu in the pole-sitting No. 38 KeePer CERUMO GR Supra (Hiroaki Ishiura/Toshiki Oyu) who took the lead. Following in 2nd position came the No. 19 WedsSport ADVAN GR Supra (Yuji Kunimoto/Sena Sakaguchi), while in 3rd position came the No. 16 ARTA MUGEN CIVIC TYPE R-GT #16 (Hiroki Otsu/Ren Sato), chased by the No. 8 ARTA MUGEN CIVIC TYPE R-GT #8 (Tomoki Nojiri/Nobuharu Matsushita) in 4th position, with all four cars maintaining their grid positions.

Behind this lead group, the No. 39 DENSO KOBELCO SARD GR Supra (Yuhi Sekiguchi/Sacha Fenestraz) that had started from 8th position on the grid charged hard toward the front to take 6th position on the 2nd lap, after which it continued to pass the No. 3 Niterra MOTUL Z (Daiki Sasaki/Atsushi Miyake) in 5th position and then passed cars No. 16 and No. 19 one after another to finally move into 2nd position by the 35th lap of the race.

In similar fashion, the No. 1 au TOM’S GR Supra (Sho Tsuboi/Kenta Yamashita) that had started from 7th position passed another TOM’S team car, the No. 37 Deloitte TOM’S GR Supra (Ukyo Sasahara/Giuliano Alesi), on the first lap and went on to close in on car No. 3. Some 30 minutes after the start, a GT300 car suffered machine trouble which resulted in the calling of a Full Course Yellow (FCY), and at the end of the FCY, No. 1 succeeded in moving up into 6th position. After that, as with car No. 39, it passed cars No. 16 and No. 19 in succession to move into 3rd position by the 36th lap of the race.

Meanwhile, Oyu in car No. 38 succeeded in pulling away from the pack through the early stages of the race. By some 30 minutes after the start of the race, Oyu had completed 20 laps and in the process increased his margin of lead over 2nd and the rest of the pack to more that 12 seconds, and by one hour into the race he had completed 38 laps and increased his lead to more than 20 seconds. On the 40th lap, Oyu made his first pit stop for refueling, but at this point the team decided against a driver change and sent Oyu back into the race for a second stint.

By the time all of the GT500 class cars had completed their first refueling stop, the race order saw car No. 38 in the lead, followed in 2nd position by car No. 8, which had made an early refueling stop on the 27th lap, while in 3rd position stood car No. 1 to fill out the top three. On the 40th lap, car No. 39 changed drivers from Fenestraz to Sekiguchi, which dropped the team back into 5th position.

Continuing to run on at a fast pace, car No. 38 extended its lead to some 23 seconds by the 71st lap before making its second pit on the 72nd lap of the race. From here, Ishiura would be given the wheel for the remainder of the race. As for Ishiura, he chose to run at a well-controlled race, making skillful use of the margin of lead Oyu had built by maintaining a steady pace lap after lap. Eventually, without giving his pursuers any chance to get close, Ishiura completed 116 laps to end the 3-hour race unchallenged. With this, No. 38 completed a perfect pole-to-win race without ever once relinquishing the lead.

For Ishiura and the TGR TEAM KeePer CERUMO, this was their first win in six years since Round 2 at FUJI in May of the 2019 season when it was run as a 500km race. For Oyu, this was his second win in the GT500 class, and his first win since moving to a TOYOTA team. What’s more, this was a victory made possible by the hard work of the team crew to repair the car after the damaging crash in the previous round at OKAYAMA, which made the win so emotional that both Ishiura and Oyu had tears in their eyes after the finish.

What was occurring behind this perfect win by car No. 38 turned out to be a fierce competition for the remaining spots on the podium. Having won the previous round, car No. 1 entered this race carrying a load of 40 kg of Success Weight. But that weight didn’t seem to slow it at all, as it passed car No. 8 at the TGR Corner to take 2nd position and went on to extend its margin of lead over it to finish the 3-hour race in 2nd place on the podium.

The 3rd position on the podium went to the No. 12 TRS IMPUL with SDG Z (Kazuki Hiramine/Bertrand Baguette) that had started the race from 12th position on the grid but soon became engaged in a battle with No. 100 STANLEY CIVIC TYPE R-GT (Naoki Yamamoto/Tadasuke Makino) that had started in 13th position. From the middle stages into the final stages of the race, No. 12 held on to 3rd position. But with 15 minutes remaining in the race, car No. 100 closed in on No. 12 at a fast pace and managed to pass it. From there, No. 12 held on for a while but could eventually not hold the fast pace. This enabled car No. 100 to reach the goal in 3rd position.

Having won the opening round of the season and now finishing 2nd in Round 2, gave the car No. 1 driver pair of Sho Tsuboi and Kenta Yamashita 35 series points to maintain their lead the Drivers standing, while also adding to their momentum toward a third consecutive championship title. What’s more, with their perfect win in Round 2, the No. 38 driver pair of Hiroaki Ishiura and Toshiki Oyu moved up to 2nd position in the Drivers standing.