On lap 61, O’Halloran crashed in the chicane and returned to the pits, dropping out of the battle for the lead. Arakawa of Astemo Pro Honda SI Racing (teamed with Kohta Nozane and Ryusei Yamanaka), who had been running in sixth, also pitted due to trouble, as incidents began to plague the front runners.
Even as track temperatures rose past 2 p.m., Takahashi and Miller continued lapping in the 2’07 range, gradually pulling away from the rest. By lap 70, Takahashi had built a 13.000-second gap over Miller. On lap 73, Nagoe pitted, handing over to Kunii. Rider changes ramped up across the field, with frequent pit lane activity. Unfortunately, both F.C.C. TSR Honda France and Astemo Pro Honda SI Racing, which had been stationary in the pits for a prolonged period, were unable to return to the track and were forced to retire.
By lap 77, the gap between Takahashi, still running in the 2’08 range, and second-place Miller had increased to 14.180 seconds. Miller then handed the bike over to Katsuyuki Nakasuga (Yamaha), who rejoined the race still in second. Takahashi pitted on lap 82, passing the baton to Zarco.
Zarco returned to the track still in the lead, and by lap 85, he had widened the gap to Nakasuga to 30.360 seconds. Kunii held third, followed by Marcel Schrötter of SDG-DUCATI Team KAGAYAMA (Ducati) in fourth—though Schrötter crashed and made an emergency pit stop. Satoru Iwata of Team ATJ with docomo business (teamed with Kouki Suzuki and Takuma Kunimine) ran in fifth, with Kazuki Ito of Honda DREAM RT Sakurai Honda (alongside Daijiro Hiura and Joshua Brookes) in seventh.
While Nakasuga maintained laps in the 2’08 range, Zarco continued at a high pace in the 2’07 range, steadily increasing the gap. Kunii kept a steady rhythm in third and handed over to Abe on lap 98.
After 100 laps, Zarco remained in the lead with a 42.138-second gap over second-place Nakasuga. Iwata had climbed into third, Abe was running in fifth, and Ito in sixth.
Team ATJ with docomo business swapped Iwata for Kunimine. YAMAHA RACING TEAM also made a change from Nakasuga to Andrea Locatelli. Amid this flurry of pit activity, Zarco continued lapping in the 2’07 to 2’08 range.
On lap 107, Hiura, running in seventh, crashed in the chicane and dropped out of contention. Zarco completed 110 laps and handed the bike back to Takahashi right at the 4-hour mark.
After 4 hours of racing, the top three teams are Honda HRC, YAMAHA RACING TEAM, and SDG Team HARC-PRO. Honda. Among the Honda squads, Team ATJ with docomo business is in fifth, while Honda Asia-Dream Racing with Astemo (Nakarin Atiratphuvapat, Azroy Hakeem Anuar, and Md Zaqhwan Bin Zaidi) holds seventh.