Super Formula Round 11 Recap: Nojiri ends winless streak, Tsuboi extends championship lead
- Tarun Suresh
- 2 hours ago
- 3 min read
Written by Tarun Suresh
Qualifying for round 11 resulted in the third front row lockout of the season for Team Mugen, with Ayumu Iwasa leading the pair and Tomoki Nojiri finishing closely. The Nakajima Racing duo of Igor Fraga and Ren Sato qualified third and fourth, respectively. Kakunoshin Ohta, chasing his first Super Formula title, qualified fifth.
The other championship challengers, Tadasuke Makino, qualified seventh, and Sho Tsuboi, the defending champion, a lowly ninth.
Qualifying for Round 12, much like Round 11, was a front row lockout for Team Mugen, with Iwasa once again leading the charge. Sato qualified third, and the two Dandelions of Ohta and Makino were fourth and fifth, respectively. Championship leader Tsuboi could only muster seventh on the starting grid.
With six points from his two consecutive pole positions and his main title rivals scoring none, Iwasa had now closed the gap to Tsuboi to just 8.5 points heading into the final three races.
Round 11 ended up being a disappointment for Kazuto Kotaka and TGMGP, with his car coming to a stop with a big plume of smoke during the formation lap. Hopes were high after their first top ten start of the season for the team with no points, but it ended in frustration before it even began.
When the lights went green, Nojiri took the lead into turn one and towards the end of the S Curves, Iwasa crashed out from second after contact with Fraga, bringing out the safety car. The driver who looked to be the title favourite was once again pushed to the fringes of the title battle with his fourth DNF of the season.
Ohta also had an abysmal start, dropping from fifth to thirteenth on the main straight and was promoted to twelfth after Iwasa’s retirement.
After the restart, Fukuzumi went back to places down to seventh with Tsuboi and Kazuya Oshima getting ahead.
On lap 9, Zak O’Sullivan spun out of turn one after trying to overtake Oliver Rasmussen, bringing out the second safety car.
With the pit window open under the safety car, similar to the season opener, every single car pit at the same time. The double-stacking heavily disadvantaged Ren Sato, who came in from third a little more than a second behind his teammate and came out of the pits only fifteenth.
The order for the second race restart was Nojiri in first, followed by Fraga, Makino, Tsuboi and Oshima. Ohta had jumped up to eighth in the pits.
A move around the inside of Kenta Yamashita at 130R saw Ohta jump into seventh. Ohta’s charge continued with a brilliant overtake around the outside of Fukuzumi at turn two for sixth. A dummy into the Casio Triangle saw him gain yet another place
Tomoki Nojiri crossed the finish line first, ending his year-long drought of winless races. Fraga came second for his career-best finish, followed by Tadasuke Makino in third. Tsuboi came fourth to extend his championship lead to 16.5 points and and a charging Kakunoshin Ohta rounded off the top five.
Oshima equalled his season best finish in sixth, ahead of Fukuzumi in seventh. Sacha Fenestraz finished eighth ahead of Ren Sato, who made up seven places after the second safety car restart. Atsushi Miyake grabbed his and ThreeBond Racing’s first points finish this season in tenth.
As mentioned earlier, Tsuboi still leads the Drivers’ Championship, now with 112.5 points. Tied for second place with 96 points each are Iwasa and Ohta. Makino has closed the gap to Tsuboi with 92 points, and Nojiri is still mathematically in contention for the title with 87.5 points.
Team Dandelion have also extended their lead in the Teams’ Championship with 172 points. Team Mugen has now jumped up to second with 153.5 points, and 3 points behind them are Team TOM’S.
With two races and both championship fights settling tomorrow, the season finale will be one to surely keep us on the edge of our seats. Round 10 will take place at 9:50 AM JST and Round 12 at 2:30 PM JST.
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