Lexus locked out the podium spots in the Thailand round of SUPER GT, while Jenson Button endured his first official retirement of the season.
For the most part, the race appeared to be a two-horse race between the pole-sitting LeMans Lexus and similar LC500 of #36 TOM’S pairing Kazuki Nakajima and Yuhi Sekiguchi.
Although Nakajima had passed the LeMans car of Kenta Yamashita and Kazuya Oshima shortly before the mid-race distance, a slow pitstop reset the battle between the two teams.
Nick Cassidy in the sister TOM’S car also joined the fight after a safety car, deployed after three Honda cars were involved in an incident.
Button made contact with the Mugen NSX-GT of Daisuke Nakajima through a tricky sequence of corners, with ARTA Honda of Tomoki Nojiri spinning with a left-rear puncture – presumably as a consequence of the same incident.
Cars of both Nakajima and Nojiri were left stranded on the track, while Button had to bring the Kunimitsu Honda he shares with Naoki Yamamoto back to the pits shortly after.
The result marked Button and Yamamoto’s third non-points finish of the season, the reigning champions only top 10 result coming in form of a podium finish at Fuji.
At the safety car restart, Nick Cassidy, running third in the #37 TOM’S after two quick moves, dived down the inside of Sekiguchi at the hairpin for second place.
However, Sekiguchi tried to hold around the outside at the exit of the corner, the two TOM’S Lexus cars making contact that pushed Sekiguchi over the kerbs and into the air.
Sekiguchi slipped down the order as a result, while Cassidy continued to chase down Yamashita for the lead.
On lap 45, Cassidy got a run on his LeMans rival at the back straight, but Yamashita held the inside line to retain the lead of the race.
After subsiding the initial challenge from Cassidy, Yamashita upped the pace to secure a first victory for the LeMans team since 2013.
Cassidy and Ryo Hirakawa had to settle for second, with reigning Japanese F3 champion Sho Tsuboi and Kunimoto claiming third in all-Lexus podium lockout.
Kondo Nissan duo Jann Mardenborough and Mitsunori Takaboshi enjoyed their best run of the season in fourth, the two breaking a Lexus monopoly at the front of the field.
In the GT300 class, European F3 convert Sacha Fenestraz missed out on a maiden win after his Kondo Nissan teammate Kazuki Hiramine was overtaken on the final lap by the Gainer Nissan of Keishi Ishikawa.