Kunimitsu Wins Autopolis, Cuts SUPER GT Title Gap to Three Points

Archive image: a Honda HRC PRELUDE-GT display car at Osaka Auto Messe on February 13, 2026, not the winning No. 100 car or the Autopolis race. Photo: Aos.1905 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. Resized for display.

Naoki Yamamoto and Tadasuke Makino won SUPER GT’s three-hour Autopolis race on October 18, 2026, putting STANLEY TEAM KUNIMITSU just three points behind the GT500 championship leaders. Their No. 100 Honda Prelude-GT completed 98 laps and finished 1.363 seconds ahead of the No. 38 KeePer CERUMO Toyota GR Supra, according to the official race classification.

A long first stint made the difference

The victory did not begin with pole position. In its qualifying report, Honda recorded the No. 100 car fourth on the grid, while Modulo Nakajima Racing’s No. 64 took pole through Riki Okusa’s 1:32.414 lap. Honda also explained an unusual detail of this weekend: cars retained their full success weight because the postponed Malaysia round had been moved into the final Motegi meeting. The usual reduction before the season finale therefore did not apply at Autopolis.

SUPER GT’s race report credits Kunimitsu’s pit timing with changing the contest. Yamamoto stayed out until lap 45 before the first stop; the team then made its second stop only 13 laps later. Makino brought the car home for the pairing’s second victory of 2026, following their Round 4 win at Fuji.

Toshiki Oyu and Rikuto Kobayashi took second in the No. 38 Toyota. Katsumasa Chiyo and Mitsunori Takaboshi completed the podium in the No. 23 MOTUL Niterra Nissan Z, 7.972 seconds behind the winner. The pole-winning No. 64 Honda finished 12th despite setting the race’s fastest lap, a 1:36.783 by Igor Omura Fraga.

Three points separate the leading GT500 crews

The No. 36 au TOM’S Toyota of Sho Tsuboi and Kenta Yamashita finished eighth, but the updated driver standings still put them first with 61 points. Yamamoto and Makino now have 58. Koudai Tsukakoshi and Yuto Nomura are third on 45 after their No. 17 Astemo Honda finished 14th. Kunimitsu’s win therefore changes the championship margin substantially without changing who leads it.

The next meeting needs a little care when reading the calendar. SUPER GT lists the rescheduled Round 3 at Motegi for November 6–7 and Round 8 for November 6–8. Both races are listed as 250-kilometer events on the official 2026 calendar; Autopolis was not the final race of the season.

K-tunes ends a long wait in GT300

The same race report names Morio Nitta and Shinichi Takagi as GT300 winners in the No. 96 K-tunes Lexus RC F GT3. They started seventh, stopped early and later skipped a tire change. The result was K-tunes’ first win since 2019 and Nitta’s record-extending 23rd class victory.

The GT300 classification records 93 laps for the Lexus and a 25.828-second advantage over the No. 360 RUNUP × SOL Nissan GT-R. The No. 65 LEON PYRAMID Mercedes-AMG finished third. These are the classified results, rather than a list inferred from the order cars crossed the line.

For more race reporting, read our coverage of Tyler Reddick’s Phoenix Cup win and its championship implications.