2023 SUPER FORMULA Round 2 Report

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The second round of the 2023 Super Formula series was held at Fuji Speedway, and the reigning champion Tomoki Nojiri won the race after starting from the pole position. Bouncing back from the defeat to Liam Lawson, his new teammate, and a series debutant, in the opening round on the day before, Nojiri fully showed his speed and consistency to take his first victory of the 2023 season.

Although the race weekend began with rain and heavy wind, Round 2 on April 9th, Sunday, was favored by fine weather from the early hours of the day. Feeling dazzling sunshine and relatively cool air, the drivers headed to the qualifying session in the morning. For this round, the usual knock-out system was employed, and Nojiri easily went on to Q2 by setting the fastest time in Q1’s Group A.

Team Mugen looked strong again in Sunday’s qualifying, as the race winner of Round 1, Lawson, was also the fastest of Group B in Q1. Then the top six of each group fought for the pole position in Q2. To avoid traffic, the 12 drivers voluntarily began qualifying attempts in two packs, six drivers each. Nojiri led the first pack and set 1’21″590, which was 0.4 seconds faster than Toshiki Oyu’s interim fastest time before that, 1’21″590.

Following the teammate, Lawson crossed the finish line. But he couldn’t beat even Oyu’s time and eventually ended the session in fourth with his best time at 1’21″645. Another guy who was faster than the Kiwi was Ritomo Miyata. He clocked 1’21″570 and secured the second grid ahead of Oyu, but the gap between him and the reigning champion was substantial. Thus, Nojiri claimed a back-to-back pole position this weekend, the 15th pole in his Super Formula career.

At the start of the 41-lap race, Oyu made a fantastic getaway from the third grid and led the field by passing two cars in the front row. In contrast, Lawson’s start was less than ideal, and he dropped to sixth, allowing Sho Tsuboi and Kenta Yamashita to get ahead of him.

On Lap 7, there was a collision between two cars at Turn 1, which caused the Safety Car period. Since removing the halted cars took some time, Lap 10, when the pit stop window for tire change opened, came before the SC period ended. Therefore, all drivers still on the track except for Ryo Hirakawa headed to the pit entry on the lap, and the pit lane was in chaos.

Hirakawa stayed out because he received a 10-second time penalty for disobeying the agreement about prohibited matters before the race started and tried to find an opportunity even with a slim chance to recover that time by going contrary to others.

There was almost no difference between Nojiri and Oyu regarding the time spent at their pit box, but the locations of their box made a difference. Oyu’s team garage was in the middle of the pit lane, and Nojiri’s was at the end. So while Oyu had to be careful with other cars running on the pit lane when he was leaving the box after the tire change, Nojiri suffered less in that regard.

As a result, Nojiri became the effective race leader after the stop, only behind Hirakawa, who didn’t change his tires under the SC period.

On Lap 13, the Safety Car headed to the pit lane, and the field started to race again. Believing that the first lap after the restart would be crucial, Oyu immediately launched an attack on Nojiri. So he tried to outbrake the Team Mugen driver on the entry to Turn 1, but it backfired on him as Oyu locked up heavily and, instead of beating Nojiri, allowed Tsuboi to pass him on the spot.

Then Yamashita came close to Oyu on Lap 21 and tried to make a move at Turn 1, only to nearly lose his car’s control at the corner exit. Consequently, Yamashita came under pressure from Lawson and became side-by-side at Coca-Cola Corner. The first round of their battle was won by the Kondo Racing driver, who held the best line through it firmly. On the other hand, Lawson negotiated the corner by running over the track limit line with his two wheels out of it, but he attacked Yamashita again at Turn 1 on the next lap. His overtake attempt from the outside was successful this time, and his next target was Oyu.

Oyu was struggling with the flat-spotted tires, which was a result of locking up at the restart. So he was now a sitting duck for Lawson and Yamashita and was overtaken by them on Lap 24 and 25, respectively. Oyu’s pace dropped further because the condition of his tires was getting worse, so he decided to make another pit stop to get a fresh set of tires. Hence, the early race leader fell out of contention for higher rankings.

Aside from Hirakawa, who still needed to make the mandatory stop, the top five drivers at the time were Nojiri, Tsuboi, Lawson, Yamashita, and Miyata. However, the race control gave Lawson a 5-second time penalty for bleaching the SC procedure rules – not keeping a correct distance from the car ahead.

Therefore, Lawson needed to build a more than 5-second gap with Yamashita to keep the position and get on the podium as the third-place finisher. So he pushed hard to pull away from the rival behind him for the remaining less than ten laps, but Yamashita also picked up his pace when he smelled a good chance of a podium finish.

At the end of Lap 39, Hirakawa finally came into the pit, so Nojiri regained the top slot of the timing board. And he safely completed the remaining two laps to the checkered flag and scored his first win of the season. Tsuboi came in second, and Lawson, who finished behind the top two, was demoted to fifth, as Yamashita and Miyata crossed the line within 5 seconds from Lawson’s finishing time.