The opening round of the 2025 AUTOBACS SUPER GT series, the OKAYAMA GT 300km RACE, took place on April 13th at the Okayama International Circuit (one lap 3,703m × 82 laps). Unlike the previous day’s qualifying in fine weather conditions, rain fell this day from morning until part way through the race, after which the rain stopped and the track began to dry, making for difficult changing conditions. In such conditions, the 2024 GT500 champions, the No. 1 au TOM’S GR Supra（Sho Tsuboi/Kenta Yamashita）came from 2nd position on the starting grid to execute a magnificent come-from-behind win to start it on the way to a third consecutive championship. In the GT300 class, the No. 65 LEON PYRAMID AMG（Naoya Gamou/Togo Suganami）started from 4th position on the grid to win the race with a show of speed in both the rainy first half and the dry conditions of the second half.

The day before, rain had begun to fall from around 9:00 in the evening, and it still fell heavily in the morning of race day. Just before the start, at around 1:00 in the afternoon, the air temperature stood at a low 13℃, and the track was of course fully wet.

After a 4-lap Safety Car run, the race finally got underway. However, just after the start there was a 3-way crash by GT500 cars coming out of the first turn. With machine parts scattered on the track at the second corner at the time when the GT300 cars were coming through, the No. 777 D’station Vantage GT3 (Tomonobu Fujii/Charlie Fagg) that had started from 2nd position passed the pole-starting No. 4 GOODSMILE HATSUNEMIKU AMG (Nobuteru Taniguchi/Tatsuya Kataoka) to take the lead.

This accident brought the Safety Car out again, immediately after which the Red Flag was shown to stop the race. At 1:55 in the afternoon, the race was re-started behind the Safety Car, and by this time the rain had turned into a lighter drizzle.

After that, on the 11th lap the Safety Car retired. As car No. 777 began to widen its lead over the field, the No. 61 SUBARU BRZ R&D SPORT (Takuto Iguchi/Hideki Yamauchi) began to close in on car No. 4 running in 2nd position. Soon this developed into a nose-to-tail battle between the two cars. On the 14th lap, a GT500 ran off the track, bringing out the Safety Car again. By this time the rain had almost stopped completely, and after the re-start the track condition quickly improved. Due to this change, the gap between the leading car No. 777 and the chasing car No. 4 quickly grew smaller and a battle developed between the two. On the PIPER Corner of the 21st lap, the two cars collided, and car No. 777 ran off the track and came to a stop as a result. This left car No. 4 in the lead, but it was soon issued a drive-through penalty that dropped it out of contention for the lead.

Meanwhile, it was Suganami in the No. 65 LEON PYRAMID AMG (Naoya Gamou/Togo Suganami) that had started from 4th position on the grid that began to move up through the field. On the 29th lap, he passed car No. 61 to move into 2nd position, and when car No. 4 headed back to the pit for its drive-through penalty, No. 65 found itself in the lead. On the other hand, No. 61 was gradually losing position, and it was now the No. 18 UPGARAGE AMG GT3 (Takashi Kobayashi/Yuto Nomura) that had started the race from 12th position that was moving up quickly into 2nd position, and it was the new No. 666 seven × seven PORSCHE GT3R (Kiyoto Fujinami/Tsubasa Kondo) that was making its debut in this race that moved into 3rd position.

In the middle stages of the race, as the cars were changing drivers and changing from wet-use tires to slick tires, the track was still wet and some of the cars that had changed to slick tires early on were having trouble holding pace. Among these, one of the cars in the lead group, No. 65, returned to its pit on the 43rd lap. The team changed drivers from Suganami to Gamou, but they sent the car back into the race without changing their wet tires. Meanwhile, car No. 4, which had lost position due to its penalty, was quick to change to slick tires, and this prompted other GT300 cars to also change to slick tires. Car No. 18, which had held off on making its pit stop until the 46th lap, finally changed drivers and switched to slick tires.

As for car No. 65, which had continued running on wet-use tires, it finally went back to the pit to change to slick tires as well. This put car No. 18 in the lead. In 2nd position now was car No. 65, and behind it were two LEXUS RC F GT3 cars that had also delayed their pit stops, and they then took this opportunity to change to slick tires. With this, the No. 26 ANEST IWATA RC F GT3 (Igole Omura Fraga/Hironobu Yasuda) stood in 3rd position, and the No. 96 K-tunes RC F GT3 (Morio Nitta/Shinichi Takagi) rose to 4th position.

In the final stages of the race, the event of a GT500 car running off the track brough yet another Safety Car intervention. When the race was re-started on the 70th lap, the track was mostly dry, and it was car No. 65 (Gamou) in 2nd position that picked up the pace and closed in on car No. 18 (Kobayashi). Then, at the ATTWOOD Curve of the 71st lap the two cars collided, causing car No. 18 to run off the track.

With this, car No. 65 was back in the lead, but it also received a 5-sec. penalty. Because of this, Gamou maintained his fast pace in car No. 65 in an attempt to increase his lead over No. 26. Due to this, Gamou was able to increase his lead to about 9 sec. in a few laps, and with that he arrived at the finish.

With this, the race winner was the No. 65 LEON PYRAMID AMG (Naoya Gamou/ Togo Suganami), and the win brought with it redemption for a disappointing 2nd-place finish at last year’s opening round at OKAYAMA. Finishing the race in 2nd place this time was the No. 26 ANEST IWATA RC F GT3 (Igole Omura Fraga/ Hironobu Yasuda) that entered this season under new management and a new race number, making this an especially rewarding podium finish for the team. In 3rd place came the No. 56 REALIZE NISSAN MECHANIC CHALLENGE GT-R (Joao Paulo Lima de Oliveira/Kohei Hirate) that had increased its pace dramatically after the re-start.