The #1 Impul Nissan Z shared by Baguette and Hiramine was one of the main beneficiaries of the stoppage that was triggered by Naoki Yamamoto's huge crash at the end of lap 37 of 84, along with the SARD Toyota GR Supra.
That was because both the SARD and Impul squads elected for long opening stints, and neither had come in for their mandatory pitstops when the race was suspended on lap 40. But such is the short lap at Sugo that they were effectively a lap ahead of the cars that had stopped, except the top three.
The upshot was that Hiramine, after temporarily slipping out of the points on cold tyres, was able to work his way up to fifth at the chequered flag, with he and Baguette then gaining a further place when the winning Real Racing Honda NSX-GT was disqualified post-race.
It puts the defending GT500 champions on 32 points, with a 19-point deficit to the championship leaders with two races to go at Autopolis and Motegi.
"Starting P14, we decided to do something different on the strategy, because if you do the same as everybody else, it’s impossible to overtake at Sugo," Baguette told Motorsport.com.
"We were struggling on our qualifying tyre, so we went long and we hoped for something to happen, which it did with the safety car and the red flag.
"We pitted right at the restart, we put Kazuki on different tyres, and he had fresher tyres than all the cars in front of him. The pace was much better and Kazuki did an amazing job to overtake six cars on-track.
"We managed to save our championship. But if we want to win it this year, we have to win at Autopolis. To be able to do that, we need to do a better tyre selection, and we need to qualify better.
"It was a difficult weekend until the second stint. We were lucky to score good points but we can’t rely on that kind of luck again."
Impul has endured a difficult title defence, with Baguette and Hiramine only scoring a single podium finish so far at Suzuka, although they have scored points in every race so far except the summer Fuji round.
However, Baguette feels the team made a step forward in this month's in-season Motegi tyre test, where the #1 Nissan was among the fastest cars in the long runs despite being the slowest 2023 car over a single lap.
The Belgian says this has given him confidence to be competitive at the same track when the series returns for the season finale in November.
"It’s always tough when you take a wrong decision in terms of development because you are the only car running your tyre, like we are with Bridgestone," said Baguette. "We have nothing to compare ourselves to.
"Step-by-step I think we are coming back, but it’s taken a bit longer than we hoped. We were one of the strongest in the long runs at the test, so hopefully we can repeat that in the final round and be in the fight."
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