Toyota's Kazuki Nakajima led a wet Fuji round of the World Endurance Championship at the three hour mark.
Heavy rain and fog around the 2.8-mile Fuji Speedway forced the race to start under safety car conditions, before the red flags were brought out for 30 minutes during the second hour.
Another safety car period during the third hour greatly reduced the amount of sustained green flag running during the opening half.
Nakajima took the lead shortly after the withdrawal of the red flags, when Porsche opted to pit the #2 919 Hybrid.
Earl Bamber had stayed out during the stoppage, but needed to come in to re-stock his car with fuel and change over to Timo Bernhard.
That promoted Nakajima to the front, with the Japanese driver putting Bernhard a lap down with an overtake early in the third hour.
At halfway, Toyota's #8 car held a 45s lead over Nick Tandy in the sister Porsche, which dropped to fourth early on when the two cars clashed during the opening burst of green flag running.
Andre Lotterer lost part of the Porsche's front bodywork following contact with Sebastien Buemi, but the #1 Porsche crew jumped back up to second when the #7 Toyota spent an extra minute in the pits for a steering wheel change.
Lopez managed to restore the #7 machine's lost time during the second safety car intervention to sit less than a second behind Tandy at the close of the third hour.
In LMP2, TDS Racing held a one-two at the head of the class, with Pierre Thiriet leading Emmanuel Collard.
Thiriet's G-Drive car was due a pit stop when halfway fell, but the race had been commanded largely by Bruno Senna in the #31 Rebellion ORECA.
Before pitting just before halfway, Senna's cause was aided by a spin for Nicolas Lapierre, who had charged ahead of both Jackie Chan DC Racing ORECAs to sit second in the Signatech Alpine entry.
Ferrari ran one-two in GTE-Pro with Alessandro Pier Guidi leading Davide Rigon by seven seconds, while the pole-sitting Porsche 911 RSR sat fifth.
The championship-leading Ford driven by Andy Priaulx and Harry Tincknell was a force early on, but dropped off the lead lap when Priaulx picked up a penalty for running the red light at the end of the pit lane.
GTE-Am continues to be led by the Clearwater Racing Ferrari that started from pole.
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