2024 SUPER FORMULA Round 4 Report

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As it was held in late July, when school summer vacations had just begun in Japan, the entertainment areas in the circuit had many attractions for kids, such as food wagons, TV characters’ live performances, and a mini-swimming pool, under the title of “Super Formula Summer Festival 2024.”

The fourth round of the 2024 Super Formula series took place at Fuji Speedway in Shizuoka Prefecture.

Probably helped by those programs, 49,200 attendants visited the event over the two days of the weekend, and many fans enjoyed the battles of domestic top formula cars together with their children.

More importantly, it was held as the first Princess Yohko Cup race since Her Imperial Highness Princess Yohko of Mikasa deigned the cup for this Fuji round of the Super Formula championship. As such, this particular race meeting held its place as one of the most memorable events in the series’ history.

The meteorological agency declared the end of the rainy season just before the race week, so the full-blown summer arrived in the Tokai area, where Fuji Speedway is located. Consequently, it was scorching hot already from the morning hours on Saturday, the free practice and qualifying day.

The leader of the free practice was Tadasuke Makino (Docomo Team Dandelion Racing), who has been in the top group since his emotional win in the second round at Autopolis. Then, Toshiki Oyu (Vertex Partners Cerumo/Inging), Nirei Fukuzumi (Kids com Team KCMG), and Sho Tsuboi (Vantelin Team Tom’s) followed.

The air temperature at the start of the qualifying was 32 degrees centigrade. And when the drivers of Group B were on the track, the air/track temperatures rose to 33/49 degrees, which were the day’s highs. But a balmy breeze blew sometimes, and the pole position was fought under not-too-hot conditions.

In Group A of Q1, Ayumu Iwasa (Team Mugen) was the fastest, beating the free practice leader, Makino. Naoki Yamamoto (Ponos Nakajima Racing) rounded off the top three, who all used Honda engines. In contrast, the three fastest drivers of Group B, Fukuzumi on the top of the timesheet, Oyu, and Kenta Yamashita (Kondo Racing) were Toyota engine users. Looking at their qualifying times, only Iwasa and Fukuzumi set the times below the 1’23” level, so many agreed they were the favorites for the pole position.

Iwasa clocked 1’22″560 in Q2 and became the interim leader, but Fukuzumi, who made his qualifying attempt later, topped Iwasa by 0.017 seconds to secure his second pole position in the Super Formula for the first time in three years. Oyu came in third, but the gap with Fukuzumi was just 0.028 seconds. Similarly, Tsuboi ended the session in fourth, but his time was only 0.03 seconds shy of Fukuzumi’s. So, the gaps between each of the top four were surprisingly close.

Because of the light rain overnight, it was hot and humid on race day, Sunday. The first track action, a 30-minute free practice, began at 9:20, and the air temperature had already reached 31 degrees, and the track temperature was above 40 degrees at the time. Tsuboi led the session, setting his best time on the only second timed lap soon after the practice began. His speed in a continuous run after that was also remarkable, so he had to be confident about his race pace.

Before the start of the race, Her Imperial Highness Princess Yohko attended a ceremony during which the cup was unveiled. Then, in front of more than 30,000 spectators, the 41-lap race got underway.

Kakunoshin Ohta (Docomo Team Dandelion Racing), who was to start from the fifth grid, had a problem with his car and had to return to his garage after the formation lap. As a result, the race kicked off with 20 cars on the grids when the red signals blacked out.

Fukuzumi made a perfect start from the pole position, while Iwasa on the other side of the front row stalled, which panicked a few drivers immediately behind him. Nevertheless, all cars, including Iwasa’s, got through the first corner without a major accident.

Fukuzumi and Oyu completed the opening lap in first and second. Makino and Tomoki Nojiri (Team Mugen) followed in third and fourth, passing Tsuboi and Iwasa after starting from the sixth and seventh grid, respectively. But Tsuboi used the OverTake System from the final corner of Lap 3 and overtook Nojiri before they reached the first corner of the next lap. Tsuboi was clearly on a roll and passed Makino as well at Turn 1 on Lap 8, moving up to third.

The race leader, Fukuzumi, was running at a pace of low to middle 1’26” level, but Oyu was only able to run 0.1 to 0.3 seconds slower. Therefore, the gap gradually increased, and Tsuboi steadily closed in on Oyu.

When the leader entered Lap 10, the tire change window opened. The first driver to head to the pit lane was Nojiri, who was running in fifth. Then, Makino did the same on the next lap, followed by Oyu, who was fighting with Tsuboi side-by-side but came into the pit to change his tires at the end of Lap 12. These drivers’ pit stops gave Tsuboi clear space ahead of him so he could pick up his pace. As Fukuzumi made his pit stop when he completed Lap 14, Tsuboi became the interim leader.

Everything had gone smoothly for Fukuzumi until then. But during his tire change at the box, the jacks dropped before his mechanics finished changing the left-hand front wheel, which cost him considerable time. As a result, he found himself running in sixth among the drivers who had already done their tire change when he rejoined the race, so he was effectively out of contention for a victory.

As Fukuzumi suffered a setback, the lead position was fought by Tsuboi, the interim leader and yet to pit, and Oyu, who overtook Nojiri on Lap 17 and moved up to the top of early stoppers. The gap between them was about 39 seconds on Lap 18, but Oyu quickly diminished it, making the best of his fresher tires.

The estimated time loss for a pit stop was about 35 seconds, required to change tires and drive through the pit lane under the speed limit. However, Tsuboi’s lead became less than 35 seconds on Lap 24 and was reduced to 33 seconds four laps later. So, he finally decided to head to the pit box and went through the pit lane before and after the tire change. On the pit straight, Oyu overtook him at full speed, and Tsuboi resumed racing after the stop behind Nojiri and Makino.

At that time, Iwasa was the only driver yet to stop on the track, so Tsuboi was running in the interim fifth, effective fourth, which meant even a podium finish could slip away from his hands. But he started to charge at a furious pace when his fresh tires got warmed up properly. After overtaking Makino at the 13th Corner on Lap 30, Tsuboi also passed Nojiri on the pit straight immediately after they entered the next lap and came up to second. Oyu was still 3.8 seconds ahead, but Tsuboi steadily reduced the gap with the leader while setting his fastest lap on Lap 32.

On Lap 33, Tsuboi caught up with Oyu and became tail-to-nose at Dunlop Corner. On the next lap, he came abreast of the Cerumo/Inging driver at Turn 1 and managed to pass him at Coca-Cola Corner.

As Iwasa made his pit stop on Lap 39, Tsuboi put his name on the top of the leaderboard. Even after getting ahead of Oyu, he didn’t ease his pace and kept increasing his lead, and when he crossed the finish line first, he already had a 7.1-second gap with Oyu. It was Tsuboi’s third win in his Super Formula career and the first since the 2020 season’s final round at Fuji.

Oyu made his first podium finish of the season by finishing in second. For Nojiri, securing third place was good enough to remain at the top of the point standings. Despite losing a lot of time during his pit stop, Fukuzumi showed his excellent pace and ended the race in fourth, only 0.8 seconds behind Nojiri. Then, Makino and Yuji Kunimoto (Itochu Enex Team Impul) completed the top six.