Breaking down the 2026 Super Formula grid

Written by Tarun Suresh

Team Mugen will continue with their driver lineup of Iwasa and Nojiri | Credit: Super Formula

Now that Kondo Racing has announced the driver for their No.4 car, the Super Formula grid for the 2026 season is now complete.

Honda

This time around, there have been no major driver reshuffles within the Honda camp.

Team Mugen retain the reigning Drivers’ Champion, Ayumu Iwasa and two-time champion Tomoki Nojiri. The former will be eyeing his second title as he chases a Formula One seat with RB, and the latter will be eyeing a resurgence after a few difficult seasons.

Tadasuke Makino having a chat with his engineer | Credit: Super Formula

The reigning Teams’ Champions, Team Dandelion, will also stick with their current lineup of Kakunoshin Ohta and Tadasuke Makino as the Kyoto-based outfit chases their third teams’ title in a row. Both of them will be eager to secure a title after narrowly missing out on it this year.

Nakajima Racing continue with their trusty duo of Igor Omura Fraga and Ren Sato following a strong finish to the season. Fraga clinched his maiden win and Nakajima Racing’s first in three years in the penultimate round of the 2025 season, and Sato narrowly missed out on his in the final round. Glory could be restored to one of the biggest names in Japanese Motorsports as they chase their first title since 2009.

Super Formula’s newest team, Delightworks Racing, will have Nobuharu Matsushita spearheading the operation as its driver. Matsushita is returning to the series after sitting out last season, and his extensive experience will help the team as they set themselves up. The team will run only one car for 2026 and will run two from 2027 onwards.

Juju Noda stays for one more year in Super Formula with her family-owned team, Triple Tree Racing. Despite a difficult season, they showed steady improvements and are chasing points finishes in 2026.

The only driver changes in the Honda camp come from 2024 Super Formula Lights champion Syun Koide replacing Atsushi Miyake at ThreeBond Racing, leaving him without a seat for 2026. The reigning Super Formula Lights champion, Yuto Nomura, will take Koide’s place at B-Max.

Toyota

As rumoured, Toyota has had major driver shuffles heading into the 2026 season. 5 Toyota-powered teams have completely new drivers and driver pairings, and only two teams have retained both their drivers.

Sacha Fenestraz will continue with Team TOM'S | Credit: Super Formula

The first of the two teams to retain drivers is Team TOM’S, Toyota’s frontrunner. Sho Tsuboi will be eyeing his second drivers’ title after missing out by just 4.5 points. Sacha Fenestraz will continue along with him after scoring the second TOM’S car’s best points tally since the new points system was introduced in 2020 and its first win since 2021.

The only other Toyota team to maintain their driver lineup is Cerumo • Inging. Toshiki Oyu will try to bring major improvements to his performance, and Sena Sakaguchi to continue bringing home points consistently. They barely missed out on a top-five finish in the Teams’ Championship, finishing 1.5 points behind KCMG.

KCMG will bring in two-time World Rally Champion Kalle Rovanperä, who announced a shock switch to single-seaters earlier this year. The Finn will race in Super Formula for just one season and has signed with Hitech GP to compete in Formula Two in 2027 as he hopes to climb his way up into F1. Partnering him is Kenta Yamashita, who has left Kondo Racing after nine years with the outfit.

Replacing Yamashita at Kondo Racing is Luke Browning. The Macau Grand Prix winner finished fourth in the 2025 F2 season and is a test driver for the Williams F1 team. He will partner the returning Ukyo Sasahara. Sasahara left the grid at the end of the 2024 season after a disappointing year with Team TOM’S. After a couple of resurgent seasons in Super GT, he has made his return to Japan’s premier open-wheel racing series.

Credit: Super Formula

Zak O’Sullivan, former test driver for Williams, has left Kondo for Team Impul, who have downsized to a one-car operation, remarking, “I was hoping for a fresh start, and I have that now.”

TGMGP, on the other hand, have expanded into a three-car operation, with the third car being run under the Team Goh name. Charlie Wurz, the son of former F1 driver Alexander Wurz, will drive the Team Goh car. The two TGMGP cars will be driven by Toyota prodigy Rikuto Kobayashi for his first full season and endurance racing legend Kamui Kobayashi (not related to each other).

After partnering with Kamui Kobayashi at KCMG for the past two seasons, Nirei Fukuzumi will move over to ROOKIE Racing after the seat was left vacant by Kazuya Oshima’s retirement.