2024 SUPER FORMULA Round 9 Report

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The ninth and season’s final race of the 2024 Super Formula series was held at Suzuka Circuit on Sunday, November 10th, on the day following its eighth round.

After the penultimate race, the championship leader, Sho Tsuboi (Vantelin Team Tom’s), had an 18.5-point lead over Tadasuke Makino (Docomo Team Dandelion Racing) in second. This meant that Tsuboi could win his maiden title before the start of the race if he got two qualifying points or more, and Makino ended it with no points.

In the post-race press conference of the eighth round’s top three finishers, Tsuboi said, “I have a certain amount of point lead, but anything can happen in a race until we see the checkered flag. And a bad thing will happen when you lose your sharpness. So, I just try not to lose my concentration and give everything to win tomorrow’s race. I reckon as long as I keep it in mind, the title crown will follow.” And Makino said, “I know my chance is slim, but I won’t give up the fight for the championship. Anything can happen in a race up to the end, and I learned it through my own experience. I will go flat out all the way to the finish tomorrow.”

The qualifying session began at 9:15, and Makino went out to the track for Q1 as one of the drivers in Group A. The fastest in this group was Naoki Yamamoto (Ponos Nakajima Racing), who announced his retirement from the Super Formula series after this race. Makino couldn’t beat him and ended Q1 in second.

Tsuboi led the fight of Group B, so the two title hopefuls met in Q2. The Team Tom’s driver marked the overall fastest sector time in Sector 3 and set the third fastest qualifying time. But Makino ended the session in a disappointing tenth, which made his fight for the title even more challenging.

The pole position went to Tomoki Nojiri (Team Mugen), and it was his second one in 2024. The three-time champion, who had been aiming at a back-to-back title this year, fell out of the championship contention at the end of the eighth round but showed his pride as a topline driver in the qualifying. Kakunoshin Ohta placed his car on the other side of the front row after learning about his first taste of a pole-to-win in a Super Formula race the day before.

The 31-lap race started at half past 2 p.m. Nojiri’s getaway from the pole position wasn’t ideal, and Ohta led him when they went through Turn 1. Tsuboi was just behind Nojiri, and Nirei Fukuzumi (Kids Com Team KCMG) followed after making a good start from the fifth grid.

Somehow, Nojiri struggled to keep pace with other leading drivers, and Tsuboi overtook him at Turn 1 on Lap 2. Then, the Team Mugen driver was passed by Fukuzumi at Chicane on the same lap and found himself falling back to fourth.

Ohta, now leading the race, pulled away from the rest of the field at an outstanding pace. He had already built a 5-second gap with Tsuboi and headed to the pit lane at the end of Lap 12. It was his reaction to Tsuboi’s pit stop on the previous lap, intending to block the Team Tom’s driver’s undercutting attempt. And partly because of the margin that he had built before the stop, Ohta could rejoin the race still in the effective lead.

However, Tsuboi rapidly closed in on him from behind on Ohta’s out-lap when his tires were still cold. The two became side-by-side at Spoon Curve, but Ohta used the OverTake System to escape from the plight and then defended his position at Chicane, which is one of a few overtake points at Suzuka, as well. Thus, Ohta remained the effective leader, and Tsuboi missed out on a big opportunity to snatch the lead while he showed great speed and had the fastest lap at the time.

With his tires sufficiently warmed, Ohta picked up his pace again and gradually began to increase the gap with Tsuboi just as he had done in the opening laps. On Lap 22, the only driver yet to stop visited the pit box, and Ohta came back to the top of the timing screen. After that, he never eased his pace until the finish and scored the second victory of the weekend, leading Tsuboi by about 5 seconds.

Knowing that he could secure the title crown by only adding two points in the race, Tsuboi didn’t try to catch up with the eventual race winner and stayed in second to the end, holding the gap with Fukuzumi, a second behind him. Tsuboi’s consistent drive throughout the 31-lap race and the second-place finish was enough to win the long-awaited maiden championship title in his sixth Super Formula season.

Fukuzumi came in third and got on the podium for the second time this season. Nojiri failed to turn his pole position into a race win but still finished the race in fourth after losing a few positions in the early laps.

Makino, who had a mathematical chance to grab the title, had to start the race from the tenth grid. Although he moved up to ninth on the opening lap, he was then stuck behind Ukyo Sasahara (Vantelin Team Tom’s) for a while. Sasahara opted to make a stop at the earliest possible time, the end of Lap 10, so Makino reacted to it to avoid being undercut and changed his tires on the next lap.

The team crew of Dandelion Racing worked smoothly and sent Makino out on the track just ahead of Sasahara. While they exchanged their positions on Makino’s out-lap when his tires weren’t heated yet, he came abreast of Sasahara on the pit straight on Lap 15 and daringly overtook him at Turn 1 by taking the outside line. Hence, Makino could finally remove his hindrance and was running in seventh place when all the cars had made the mandatory pit stop.

In the closing stage, Makino was involved in a three-way battle with Yamamoto in sixth and Ayumu Iwasa (Team Mugen), who came up from the 11th grid like he did, and finished the race in eighth. Not only did he lose the championship fight, he ended up in third in the point standings as Nojiri came in fourth and exceeded Makino in the championship points.

Nevertheless, the pair of Ohta and Makino earned a lot of points in this doubleheader weekend, which brought Docomo Team Dandelion Racing the team title crown.

The Rookie of the Year was awarded to Iwasa, who made podium finishes three times this year and came in fifth in the drivers’ championship.

Yamamoto finished his last race in the Super Formula in sixth. A special ceremony for him was conducted after the race, and he concluded his 15-year career in the domestic top single-seater category by sending a warm encouragement to young drivers and saying words of thanks to the fans, who gave him hearty support, and to the people in the teams and the manufacturer he has belonged.