Early in the Q2 pole shootout, Yamauchi lost control of the works BRZ exiting the final corner as he ran on the kerbs, spinning and hitting the pit wall to bring out the red flags.
It means that he and teammate Takuto Iguchi will start from 16th position as they bid to defend their title, nine places behind the points-leading Kondo Racing Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 with a deficit of 2.5 points to make up.
Yamauchi felt the Subaru had the pace to take pole position, but denied that he made an error in the pressure of the moment, saying he hit the apex of the final corner as normal.
“I was using the kerb, but I didn’t touch the green section, just the blue-and-white part,” Yamauchi told Motorsport.com’s Japanese edition. “Then the car bottomed out and I lost control.
“I didn’t think it would bottom out that much. It didn’t have that tendency during free practice, so it feels like it happened suddenly in qualifying.
“Now what I have to do is forget about it and focus. The mechanics are working hard to fix it, so I just need to keep pushing like always without letting my guard down.
“There’s quite a gap between us and our main rivals, so it will be difficult, but we have to try and catch up. That’s all I can say now.”
Subaru’s misfortunes have put the points-leading Kondo crew of Joao Paulo de Oliveira and Kiyoto Fujinami in a strong position to score a second title in three years.
However, the Kondo pair will share the fourth row of the grid with the #10 Gainer Nissan of Riki Okusa and Ryuichiro Tomita, with Okusa only six points behind in the championship.
De Oliveira acknowledged that the Subaru will likely have a hard time regaining places from 16th on the grid, but expects the Dunlop-shod Gainer car to be a threat.
“For Subaru the weekend just became much harder because they have a hard time overtaking with their straight line speed,” the Brazilian driver told Motorsport.com.
“But we have to focus on ourselves. We also have to be aggressive and push, and not be looking at the points situation too much.”
On whether the Kondo squad’s Yokohama tyres will be able to go the distance against the Gainer car’s Dunlops, he added: “I’m confident that we have a good enough tyre.
“I know what we are capable of and I feel confident that we have strong pace for both stints. Unless they [Dunlop] have something special… I’m pretty confident.”
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