2024 SUPER FORMULA Round 3 Report

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From Autopolis, where the previous round took place, in Kyushu, the 2024 Super Formula series traveled a long way to the northern part of Japan to have its third round at SportsLand Sugo in Miyagi Prefecture.

On Saturday, June 22nd, the official qualifying was favored by fine weather, which was like a hot summer day temperature-wise. Under such conditions, the drivers showed excellent performance, and some clocked qualifying times faster than last year’s pole position record. However, it was raining from the morning hours on Sunday.

A 90-minute free practice was held on Saturday morning before the qualifying. Toshiki Oyu (Vertex Partners Cerumo/Inging) led the session, as he set the fastest time when he did a qualifying simulation during the final 5 minutes. As you may know, Oyu was the pole sitter of last year’s Sugo round. Nirei Fukuzumi (Kids com Team KCMG), who moved to the team this year, going beyond the border of the engine manufacturers, came in second, and Ayumu Iwasa (Team Mugen) followed in third. At the end of the session, the air/track temperatures were at 30/46 degrees centigrade and were expected to rise even higher in the qualifying in the afternoon.

The fastest driver in Group A of Q1 was Tomoki Nojiri (Team Mugen). He brilliantly recovered from lowly 15th in the practice because he was able to learn something from his teammate’s car setup, as Iwasa ended the session with the third-fastest time. With a deficit of 0.1 seconds, Sho Tuboi (Vantelin Team Tom’s) followed Nojiri, and Kakunoshin Ohta (Docomo Team Dandelion Racing) was in third place. Then, Oyu, Iori Kimura (San-Ei Gen with B-Max), and Kenta Yamashita (Kondo Racing) rounded off the top six, who were allowed to go on to Q2.

Maintaining momentum from the practice, Iwasa took the top slot of Group B. So, both Team Mugen drivers easily made their way to Q2, although Iwasa could beat Kazuya Oshima (Docomo Business Rookie), who last year scored his season’s best result at Sugo, by just one-thousandth of a second. Sena Sakaguchi (Vertex Partners Cerumo/Inging), the pole sitter in this year’s season opener, came in third. Kazuto Kotaka (Kondo Racing) and Yuji Kunimoto (Itochu Enex Team Impul) survived the fight for Q2 for the first time this season, and Tadasuke Makino (Docomo Team Dandelion Racing) was the last one to join the top six of the group.

The battle for the pole position in Q2 was fought by the pair of Team Mugen. Iwasa crossed the control line earlier than the teammate and set 1’5″364, which was faster than last year’s fastest qualifying time, but Nojiri beat him by about 0.1 seconds and won his first pole position of the season with the time of 1’5″244. The Super Formula course record at Sugo is 1’3″953, set by Naoki Yamamoto (Ponos Nakajima Racing) in 2019 when he drove for Docomo Team Dandelion Racing, but the fastest time with an SF23 car was 1’5″468, which Oyu marked last year. The third grid went to Tsuboi, and Makino, Oyu, and Yamashita followed him.

On Sunday morning, it rained gently at Sugo, and thick clouds obscured the sky over the track. Many were pessimistic about the outlook for weather conditions because, when the rain eased, the whole track was enveloped in fog.

A 30-minute free practice started at 9:55. But about five minutes into the session, Iwasa lost control of his car due to aquaplaning and spun on the pit straight. As his car hit the pit wall with one of its wheels, he couldn’t continue, and the halted car was left on the track, which caused the red flag. While the track was cleared soon, as the car’s damage was limited, the race control decided not to resume the session, considering the worsening track conditions and the changing weather. To compensate for this, they announced that they would extend the 8-minute warm-up session just before the race to last for 20 minutes.

However, the warm-up was also stopped by the red flag. Yamamoto, on his out lap, spun at the final corner and crashed into the guard rails. The driver wasn’t injured, but the schedule had to be delayed because repairing the marred guard rails took a certain amount of time.

At 14:40, about an hour after the red flag, the race control declared that the warm-up session wouldn’t be recommenced but that, from 15:00, the drivers would be allowed to do reconnaissance laps before taking their grid. This meant they could check the track conditions before the race for a lap or a few laps by driving through the pit lane.

The race got underway at 15:35, but the Safety Car led the field because the fog became thicker just before the start. After five laps of the SC period, the proper racing began from Lap 6. The top three, Nojiri, Iwasa, and Tsuboi, were close but almost evenly spaced when they went through the first corner. Behind them, Yamashita came close to Oyu, and a battle between them was about to start, but the SC came out again at the beginning of Lap 7, as Oshima crashed at the final corner.

The race restarted on Lap 13. Tsuboi, running in third, closed the gap with Iwasa at Turn 3 and then became side-by-side on the back straight. However, the Team Mugen driver managed to block Tsuboi’s move while struggling to keep his car under control on the highly slippery track surfaces. So, Iwasa remained second when they entered the final corner of the lap.

The battle between Iwasa and Tsuboi helped Nojiri to extend his lead. And soon after they entered the race’s 14th lap, Sakaguchi went off the track and hit the guard rail at the final corner. This time, the race control chose to stop the race by the red flag.

After discussions, they decided to terminate the race for two main reasons. First, the broken guard rails would need some time to be restored. Second, the weather and track conditions were unlikely to improve in the meantime.

According to the rules, the final result was determined by each driver’s position at the end of Lap 12 since the race leader had just completed Lap 13 when the red flag was shown. It meant that Nojiri won the race, followed by Iwasa in second and Tsuboi in third. And, as the race was terminated before the leader completed 70% of the prescribed race distance, only a half-portion of standard championship points were given to the point finishers. As a result, Nojiri added ten points to his tally and became the championship leader after the third round.