Super Formula Recap: Ohta wins from pole; leads championship by 20 points

Written by Tarun Suresh

Credit: Super Formula

Qualifying

Qualifying started off dramatically. Drivers were struggling to get the tyres in the right window, and a few Honda drivers were complaining about engine issues. Tadasuke Makino, Igor Fraga and Sacha Fenestraz failed to make it through to Qualifying 2. Makino, in particular, struggled in qualifying for the second day in a row. To make matters worse, this was his career-worst qualifying.

Ohta has raced in Motegi five times in his career, and every single time he has qualified second. He ended his streak of second-place starts with his maiden pole at the circuit, and he ended it dominantly by two and a half tenths. Toshiki Oyu had an impressive showing, qualifying in second. It will be his first front-row start since his last pole at SUGO in 2023. 

Oyu Posing after securing his first front row start since 2023 | Credit: Super Formula

It was an all-Mugen second row this time around, with Ayumu Iwasa leading the charge and Tomoki Nojiri six hundredths behind him. Oyu’s teammate, Sena Sakaguchi, was fifth fastest, making the Inging cars the leading Toyota team in qualifying. Syun Koide was one of the drivers complaining about engine issues, but it didn't seem to impact his lap time as he qualified sixth. Nirei Fukuzumi looked to be a contender for pole, but could only muster seventh, the highest ROOKIE Racing has qualified. 

Kenta Yamashita secured pole by half a second last year, but an eighth fastest was the best he could do on this occasion. Yuto Nomura continues his impressive rookie run with a ninth-place start, the only rookie to make it to Q2. Zak O’Sullivan turned around his misfortunes of yesterday with a tenth-place start.

It was disappointment for Ren Sato, who qualified eleventh and an even bigger disappointment for Nakajima Racing, who had gone from their cars qualifying third and fifth in round one to eleventh and fourteenth in round two. Team TOM’S and Sho Tsuboi look to be out of their element at Motegi as the 2024 drivers’ champion qualified twelfth yet again, this time 1.2 seconds off pace.

Race

It started with heartbreak for rookie sensation Nomura, who stalled the car on the formation lap. The car got going again, but had to start at the back of the field.

At the green light, Oyu got the better of Ohta and took the lead. Sakaguchi jumped up to third.

O’Sullivan was one of the big movers, climbing up to seventh. Fraga had a great start and made his way up to eighth.

Nojiri had contact with Fraga, and in an unusual situation, Nojiri’s front wing broke off and lodged itself in Fraga’s left side pod. The two-time champion had to pull into the pits to install a new wing. Tsuboi lost a few places avoiding Nojiri and dropped to thirteenth.

Rikuto Kobayashi spun out on the exit of the penultimate corner and beached the TGMGP machine in the gravel, bringing out the safety car.

Ohta used up three-fourths of his OTS trying to make his way past Oyu while he was on his cooldown. But Oyu’s defence was too tough to penetrate, and Ohta had to back off.

When the pit window opened on lap 10, Oyu was the first to jump the gun, and came out of the pits in eighteenth, some seven seconds off Juju Noda. Following him into the pits were Koide, Matsushita, Makino, Nomura and Charlie Wurz.

Oyu was the first to pit | Credit: Super Formula

Ohta opted to stay out. Iwasa came in a few laps later on lap 14 and came out four and a half seconds behind Oyu, but struggled getting the tyres up to temperature and dropped behind O’Sullivan.

Ohta came into the pits on lap 20 and came out ahead of Oyu. In a turn of fortunes, Oyu was the one jumping on OTS this time, but couldn’t get past Ohta and started dropping behind the Dandelion driver.

5 laps later, Sakaguchi made his mandatory pitstop and jumped his teammate, Oyu, who was dropping down close to O’Sullivan.

Fenestraz came in on lap 28, but was going slow due to a rear right rear suspension issue. He managed to get back into the pit lane and retired. Fukuzumi came in from the lead on lap 32 and also came out ahead of Oyu, putting him en route to ROOKIE Racing’s maiden podium.

Luke Browning had his mandatory stop on the penultimate lap and, with one lap to go, had jumped to fourth place, having started twenty-first.

Fukuzumi earned ROOKIE Racing's maiden podium | Credit: Super Formula

Kakunoshin Ohta crossed the line first, grabbing his second win of the season. Sakaguchi crossed the line second for his third career podium. Fukuzumi rounded off the podium.

Browning executed the strategy to perfection, finishing fourth. Oyu held on to fifth ahead of a rapid O’Sullivan in sixth.

Yamashita got past Iwasa on the final lap to finish seventh, with the defending champion finishing eighth. Koide finished ninth, and Nobuharu Matsushita secured the final points position on DELiGHTWORKS Racing’s debut race weekend.

Championship Standings

Ohta leads the Drivers’ Championship with 35 points, and 20 points behind him is Sakaguchi in second. Iwasa is in third with 14.5 points. Fukuzumi is fourth in the standings with 11 points, and Browning is fifth with 8 points.

Team Dandelion lead the Teams' Championship | Credit: Super Formula

Defending Teams’ Champions Team Dandelion start the season the way they started the last one, with back-to-back wins, scoring 30 points. Cerumo·Inging are second with 21 points, and Mugen are third with 12 points.

Round 3

Round 3 will be held from the 24th to the 26th later this month at Autopolis. It is a circuit where Ohta has struggled in the past and where Tsuboi and Team TOM’S have scored podiums at in the past three iterations, with Tsuboi winning it outright last year.

It will be a single race weekend, meaning a single qualifying session on Saturday and a race on Sunday. Super Formula are trying a new qualifying format for that weekend. The top five drivers from Q2 will battle it out for pole in Qualifying 3.