Kakunoshin Ohta storms to victory at Fuji from 13th

Credit: Super Formula

The race started with Zak O’Sullivan defending the lead against Toshiki Oyu, just barely hanging onto the lead. Staněk took advantage of his OTS and climbed up to fourth.

Meanwhile, Nojiri’s Mugen machine couldn’t move at the start, and the two-time champion dropped to the back of the field; it took almost a minute for the car to get going, effectively ending his race.

He wasn’t the only one climbing up the order; championship leader Kakunoshin Ohta jumped up to ninth by the end of the first two laps after starting 13th, and his teammate, Tadasuke Makino, was already up in fourth, hunting down Luke Browning in third.

It took until lap 7 for Makino to pull off that move up to third, and by that time, Ohta made his way up to seventh. Meanwhile, up front, Zak O’Sullivan had opened the gap to Oyu in second to around three seconds.

When the pit window opened on lap 11, only two drivers, Charlie Wurz and Nobuharu Matsushita, came in for their mandatory pit stop, and despite the light showers, they went for slicks. Next lap, Ren Sato came in to do the same.

On lap 14, the two Dandelion cars were now one behind the other after Ohta made his way past Browning for fourth.

By around lap 18, drivers started coming in one after the other as the threat of rain seemed to die down, but most of the drivers in the points scoring positions chose to stay out.

Credit: Super Formula

On lap 21, Ohta came in to pit and around the same time, Makino jumped up to second ahead of Oyu. Oyu made his pit stop the following lap.

A lap after that, O’Sullivan made his pitstop and came out three seconds ahead of Ohta but quickly lost time on cold tyres and lost the position on the main straight. Crucially, this move cost Ohta the last of his OTS while O’Sullivan had barely used any.

Makino made his stop on lap 29 and came out ahead of Oyu in net third and, after a quick back and forth, was able to maintain third.

Despite O’Sullivan having the OTS advantage, he couldn’t keep up with the pace of Ohta, and when the checkered flag came out, it was Ohta who crossed the line first to grab the win.

O’Sullivan was a second and a half behind in second place, and Makino joined the pair on the podium. Toshiki Oyu drove well to hold on to fourth place, and Syun Koide quietly made his way up the field to finish fifth.

Fraga finished sixth ahead of Sakaguchi, Browning, Nomura and Iwasa, who occupied the last of the points scoring positions.

With two of his title rivals outside the points and the third scoring only one, this win has allowed Ohta (73 points) to extend his title lead to a significant 34.5 points ahead of Iwasa (38.5 points).

In the Teams’ Standings, Dandelion Racing (81 points) have a comfortable lead of 35 points ahead of Cerumo·Inging (46 points).

There are two races set to happen tomorrow, one at 10:05 JST and the other at 15:35 JST.