2024 SUPER FORMULA Round 7 Report

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The seventh round of the 2024 Super Formula series was held on October 13th at Fuji Speedway. The winner of the sixth round on the day before, Sho Tsuboi (Vantelin Team Tom’s), took second consecutive victory again on Sunday, his third of the season, and became the new championship leader.

Regarding the second race of the Fuji doubleheader weekend, Tsuboi was a clear pacesetter from the qualifying, as he led Group A of Q1 with the fastest time, 1’22″386. The pole sitter of the sixth round, Nirei Fukuzumi (Kids Com Team KCMG), was also assigned to the same group but ended the Q1 session in sixth, about 0.3 seconds slower than Tsuboi, as the last one to clear the bar for Q2.

Tsuboi dominated Q2 by setting 1’21″880 and claimed the pole position. No other driver could clock a lap time in the 1’21” level. Tomoki Nojiri (Team Mugen) came in second, 0.272 seconds behind Tsuboi, followed by Fukuzumi in third. At this point, Tsuboi got three championship points for the pole position and exceeded Nojiri’s score in the point standings, which meant the Team Tom’s driver would start the race as the championship leader.

While the qualifying session was run under a clear autumn sky, it gradually turned cloudy when the starting procedures began. While there was no concern about rain, it became shady, and the 41-lap race started with the air/track temperatures at 25/35 degrees centigrade.

Tsuboi made a clean getaway and entered the first corner, making a defensive move against Nojiri. This caused the Team Mugen driver to slightly lose momentum, and Tadasuke Makino (Docomo Team Dandelion Racing), starting from the fourth grid, maximized the opportunity to rise to second.

On Lap 2, a collision occurred in the midfield between Iori Kimura (San-ei Gen with B-Max) and Atsushi Miyake (Threebond Racing). Miyake consequently went off the track and parked his car there. The safety car was deployed to remove the halted car.

The racing resumed at the beginning of Lap 7. And at the same time, Nojiri, running in third, began to struggle. On the next lap, Fukuzumi rapidly reduced the gap with him on the pit straight and overtook him at Turn 1 immediately after that. Then Nojiri couldn’t resist the attack from Ren Sato (Ponos Nakajima Racing) one lap later and fell back to fifth.

When they completed the first ten laps, the mandatory tire change window opened. Makino, who was running in second at the time after passing Nojiri and Fukuzumi as well, was the first to steer to the pit lane, and another four drivers, including Nojiri and Kamui Kobayashi (Kids Com Team KCMG), followed suit. On the next lap, Toshiki Oyu (Vertex Partners Cerumo/Inging), Naoki Yamamoto (Ponos Nakajima Racing), and another two drivers made their pit stop.

Fukuzumi came into the pit box at the end of Lap 12 and rejoined the race just ahead of Makino as the effective leader. But, immediately after his stop, the Safety Car came out for the second time in the race because the car of Kazuya Oshima (Docomo Business Rookie) came to rest at Turn 1 in the aftermath of contact with Yuji Kunimoto (Itochu Enex Team Impul).

This Safety Car intervention provoked a rush to the pit lane by the drivers who had yet to change their tires, and Tsuboi was one of them. As the cars staying out on the track had to run slowly behind the Safety Car, Tsuboi obtained a considerable time advantage and could keep the lead position when he returned to the track.

Sato went out to the course after his pit stop just behind Tsuboi, but he got too close to Makino at Turn 1 and made slight contact with the Dandelion Racing driver. Fortunately, their cars were not damaged. The race restarted for the second time on Lap 17, with Tsuboi leading Fukuzumi, Sato, and Makino.

Making the most of his fresher tires, Sato rapidly closed in Fukuzumi and overtook him on the pit straight on Lap 18, which put the Nakajima Racing driver in second. Yet, then Fukuzumi fought back in exactly the same manner and wrested the position away from Sato. A few moments later, Sato made a mistake and went wide at Coca Cola Corner, so Fukuzumi went out of his reach. Then, he stepped back to the fourth as Makino also overtook him.

Tsuboi went on as the race leader, keeping an about a one-second gap with Fukuzumi. On the other hand, Nojiri still struggled and lost more positions, dropping to ninth on Lap 33 as a result.

On the same lap, Sena Sakaguchi (Vertex Partners Cerumo/Inging) and Yamamoto collided just ahead of Turn 2. Their cars halted on the course side, causing the third Safety Car period of the day.

The Safety Car came in with only three laps to go. Therefore, every driver used the OverTake System as much as possible and tried to catch the cars ahead, but at the end of the day, there was no significant position change. Thus, Tsuboi scored his season’s third victory, and Fukuzumi and Makino followed in second and third, respectively. This meant that the Team Tom’s driver won all three races held at Fuji this year, and his championship point tally is now 86.5.

Makino, with 72 points, rose to second in the point standings. Nojiri ended the race in ninth but was given the seventh place in the final result because of two reasons. The first was Sato’s disqualification due to a technical infringement found at the post-race scrutineering, breaching the car’s minimum weight regulation. The second was the time penalty to Nyck de Vries (Itochu Enex Team Impul), who finished in eighth, for causing a collision with another car during the race. Consequently, Nojiri ranked third in the point standings with 70 points.