The #25 Hoppy-sponsored Toyota GR Supra GT was heavily damaged on Saturday morning when team newcomer Togo Suganami speared into the barriers exiting Turn 1 in the wet conditions.
Suganami escaped from the accident unhurt, but the damage was enough to prevent the Tsuchiya squad from participating in the afternoon session or the second day of running on Sunday.
A similar accident for the #25 Supra in testing last year at Suzuka was severe enough to prevent the team from taking part in the following race at Fuji, owing to a lack of spare parts for what was then a car in its first year of service.
However, Takeshi Tsuchiya's eponymous team is optimistic of being able to turn around the damaged car for the opening race of the new campaign at Okayama on April 15-16 following its latest setback.
Chief engineer Ryunosuke Kino told Motorsport.com's Japanese edition: "I think we can fix it [in time for Okayama]. Compared to the crash last year at Suzuka, this is nothing."
Kino went on to explain that the 2023 iteration of the Tsuchiya Supra, which replaced the team's Porsche 911 GT3 R last year, features more reproducible parts than the 2022 model.
That means the team will be able to avoid a repeat of last year's situation in which the team was unable to return to the car's previous specification upon its return to action at Suzuka in late August.
"With the Suzuka crash, we struggled with the fact that we couldn't return to what we had before," he said. "This is not the best situation you can have in manufacturing, but it's inevitable when you are utilising used parts.
"However, now we are able to go back to what we had before. That means we won't have a situation like we had at Suzuka, where we ended up with a completely different car, so in that sense I'm relieved."
Suganami, who is returning to SUPER GT full-time this season after a year out, is sharing driving duties in the Tsuchiya Supra with Toyota junior Seita Nonaka for the 2023 season.
The ex-LEON Racing driver replaces Takamitsu Matsui, who has joined Team Mach for the new campaign.
