Iwasa ends Super Formula winless streak after a chaotic race at Fuji
Ayumu Iwasa clinches his first win in 10 races in a drama-filled Round 10 at Fuji. Zak O'Sullivan finished second ahead of Nobuharu Matsushita.
As it happened
Fraga defended aggressively from Iwasa at the start, but could not open up a gap to the defending champion. Iwasa soon took the lead away from Fraga.
Behind them, O’Sullivan, Toshiki Oyu and Kakunoshin Ohta were battling it out for third. Oyu had a quick start, jumping to fourth and side by side with O’Sullivan but went outside around Turn 2 and dropped to tenth; Ohta took advantage of the squabble and took third place.
Fraga’s troubles didn’t end with losing the lead as he soon found himself having to defend from Kakunoshin Ohta.
O’Sullivan soon lost out a place to Sho Tsuboi, dropping to fifth.
On Lap 5, Oyu and Yuto Nomura made contact at Turn 1, and Nomura’s front right suspension was terminally damaged, forcing him to retire. Oyu was not penalised, and the incident brought out the Safety Car.
The restart was clean, and no positions were changed amongst the top five.
On lap 11, when the pit stop window opened, none of the top ten chose to pit.
Ohta was the first amongst the top five to pit, coming in on Lap 18. On his out lap, he was challenged by Oyu, who pit a few laps earlier. Ohta and Oyu made contact into Turn 3. The championship leader was left unscathed, but Oyu spun around and was able to keep going.
The following lap, Fraga made his pit stop and came out ahead of Ohta. Ohta made a last ditch lunge into the penultimate corner, but made contact with Fraga, ending his own race and giving Fraga sidepod damage, effectively ending his race as well.
This brought out the Safety Car again, incentivising those who hadn’t pit until then to do so. In the pit lane, Nirei Fukuzumi was released onto the path of Luke Browning, who had to stop, but was hit by Syun Koide, who was released into the path of Browning. Koide was in turn hit by Rikuto Kobayashi, entangling the four cars. Fukuzumi was the only one of the bunch who could continue racing but was only 14th.
On the restart, Tsuboi, running fifth, locked up his front tyres into Turn 1 and rammed into the back of his teammate in SuperGT, Kenta Yamashita. The incident brought out a third safety car.
Once the dust had settled on the running order, Iwasa was leading ahead of Nobuharu Matsushita and O’Sullivan. Makino was fourth just ahead of Oyu.
At the restart, Iwasa and Matsushita maintained positions. O’Sullivan, however, lost out to Makino and Oyu. Makino soon got lost out to Oyu as well, promoting the Inging driver to third.
O’Sullivan then embarked on a late charge, climbing past Makino and Oyu into third. On the final lap, the Brit made a late lunge into turn 13, jumping ahead of Matsushita for second.
Iwasa crossed the line first, grabbing his and Team Mugen’s first win of the season. O’Sullivan finished second on what could potentially be his final race of the season. Matsushita grabbed a second podium of the season for Super Formula’s newest team.
Toshiki Oyu finished fourth ahead of Sacha Fenestraz in fifth. Makino slipped back to sixth, fending off Nojiri in seventh. Charlie Wurz finished eighth ahead of Giuliano Alesi in ninth, the first points finish for the Frenchman since his return mid-season. Fukuzumi took up the final points paying position.
Ohta still leads the championship, but the gap has been cut down massively to 32.5 points, meaning the Kyoto native would have to wait until the Round 11 race to mathematically wrap up the title. Iwasa is currently second in the standings. Fraga is third and the final driver mathematically in contention, but would need perfect performances in the final two rounds, with Ohta scoring no points, to win the title.
The season finale is up next and will take place from 20th to 22nd November.
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