The second round of Super GT series was held at Okayama International Circuit under the cherry trees in full bloom after a two week interval from the season opener.

HIS ADVAN Kondo GT-R won the last race and made the best possible start of the season. This time, the car began practice sessions carrying a 40kg weight handicap for that victory but the lap times in free practice were reasonably good considering the weight. However, because of a slight driving error, the car went off the track in the first section of second qualifying session and was knocked out early without making a full attack.

The GT300 class was the ADVAN equipped cars' happy hunting ground and the top four slots were dominated by them, namely, JLOC Lamborghini RG-3 (Koji Yamanishi/Yuhi Sekiguchi), UP Start MOLA Z (Naoki Yokomizo/Tsubasa Abe), apr Corolla Axio (Koki Saga/Kosuke Matsuura) and WedsSport IS350 (Manabu Orido/Tatsuya Kataoka).

In addition, Apple K-One Shiden, driven by the veteran Hiroki Katoh and a Super GT rookie, Hiroshi Hamaguchi who is often mentioned as 'the hope of amateur drivers', took the eighth place in the final section of the knock out qualifying session by the rookie's strenuous efforts.

The weather was fine on Sunday, as it had been the day before. The air and track temperatures were quite low during the warm up session in the early morning but they were gradually rising as the start time approached under a gentle sunshine. The temperatures just before the race came up to 18℃ (air) and 30℃ (track surface).

The starting driver of HIS ADVAN Kondo GT-R was J.P. de Oliveira again. He gained a position on Lap 12 to move up to 12th and then came up further to ninth on Lap 16, thanks to a mess among the leading cars.

However, de Oliveira's pace wasn't very good, probably due to the effect of much higher track temperature than that of Saturday and/or the severe tire wear because of the close battle during the early stage. The team decided to bring forward its scheduled pit stop and sent the car back on the track with four new tires and Hironobu Yasuda at the wheel. But the Japanese also wasn't able to drive any faster and had to settle for finishing 12th place where the car started the race.

In the GT300 class, the pole sitting JLOC Lamborghini RG-3 comfortably led the first half of the race by Yamanishi's steady driving but the car lost some precious time during its scheduled pit stop and stepped back a few positions. This gave M7 Mutiara Motors Amemiya SGC-7 the top slot, as its starting driver, Nobuteru Taniguchi, had quickly moved up through the field from the 11th grid and already passed Yokomizo's UP Start MOLA Z a few laps before to take up the second place.

Taniguchi came into the pit at the end of his 43th lap. After a driver change to Ryo Orime and refueling, the car left the pit without changing to the new tires and managed to get back to the top slot in only a few laps, thanks to the team's decision. Despite carrying a 40kg weight handicap, Orime lapped in a good pace and looked to repeat the feat the team achieved in the season opener. But, when the car exited Vipor Corner on Lap 55, a part on its steering system was broke, which sent the car straight into the barrier. And their race ended on the spot, preventing the team's consecutive win.

The lead position was taken over by UP Start MOLA Z which had steadily been running near the top, followed by Apple K-One Shiden. By Kato's tremendous effort during his long stint, the Shiden managed to come up through the field but still there was a 20 second gap with the new leader which eventually cruised to the finish.

Behind the Shiden, a group of five or six cars battling against each other was rapidly closing and looked to catch up the car in second with Hamaguchi at the wheel now. But the Super GT rookie performed extremely well. The Shiden was running on worn tires, because the team chose not to change the tires at the pit stop to gain more positions, and therefore, in the second half of the race, it had to defend the position against its pursuing opposition on fresher tires.

"My race pace was a bit closer (to Katoh's) than before," said Hamaguchi, looking back the race. Just as he analyzed himself, his pace was good enough not only to remain in second but to extend the gap slightly and he got on his first podium in his only second Super GT race.

The winner of the fierce battle for the third place was Hasemi Sport Tomika Z. The team changed only two left-hand tires to save the pit stop time, as the wear rate of left-hand side was much higher than that of the opposite side in this circuit, and this clever decision led them to the podium after a dog fight in the second half of the race.