2018 SUPER FORMULA Round 4 Report

【SUPER FORMULA Round 4 / Fuji】

Nick Cassidy wins from pole.
KONDO RACING ends ten year Super Formula victory drought.

SUPER FORMULA Round 4

Date 2018/07/06-08
Venue Fuji Speedway
Weather Fine
Surface Dry
Race Lap 55Laps
(1Lap = 4,563m)
2018 SUPER FORMULA Round 3

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Heavy rain hit most parts of Japan during the second weekend of July and the eastern part of Shizuoka prefecture where Fuji Speedway is located wasn’t an exception at least until Saturday, May 7th.

Therefore, the shakedown of the first example of new Super Formula car for 2019, known as SF19, had to be run mostly on the wet track, as was the case of the track time opportunities for the teams on Friday and Saturday morning.

In the official practice session on Saturday, Kenta Yamashita driving for KONDO RACING set the fastest time. With his teammate Nick Cassidy also ranked in fifth in the session, the team made a good start for the weekend.

The track conditions during the qualifying session were ever-changing, as Q1 started with dry surfaces but they became wet on the second half of Q1, and then the track was drying when Q2 began. But, when the drivers went out on the track for Q3, large drops of rain started to fall suddenly and soaked the tarmac entirely.

Because of such conditions, the window to make qualifying attempts was so narrow, especially for Q2 and Q3 which are relatively short – seven minutes each, combined with the fact that every driver had to spend some time to change tires suited to those to the track conditions.

Actually almost all drivers had only three timed laps during the session but Cassidy was lucky enough to get a extra lap, as he crossed the finish line just before the checkered flag fell. So he could set the fastest time of the session under the most favorable track conditions and secured his first pole position this year – and the second in Super Formula for him.

Naoki Yamamoto of TEAM MUGEN, who also had the crucial extra lap, get the second grid to start the race from the front row, followed by Hiroaki Ishiura (JMS P.MU/CERUMO・INGING) and Kazuki Nakajima (VANTELIN TEAM TOM’S).

Almost no rain on Sunday and it was the hottest day in the weekend. During the time for Pit Walk, there was a demonstration run of SF19, in front the crowd of around twenty thousandof motor racing fans. In the wake of the excitement, the race got underway, with five drivers out of the top six, except for Kodai Tsukagoshi of REAL RACING, chose the soft tires for the start.

When the red signals blacked out, Cassidy from the pole position made a good start and so did Ishiura. But Yuhi Sekiguchi driving for ITOCHU ENEX TEAM IMPUL, who was on the sixth grid, managed to do a better one than anybody else.

So, as Cassidy steered to the inside to block Yamamoto, Ishiura found a clear space in front of him and tried to catch the Kiwi. Then Sekiguchi also went to the outside of Ishiura, using the overtake button, we saw the three cars going into Turn 1 almost abreast.

When they completed the opening lap, Cassidy was leading the field, with Ishiura and Sekiguchi behind him. In the leading pack, the drivers with the soft tires, which have a clear advantage at the start, were dominant. Among the medium tire starters, Yuji Kunimoto of the JMS P.MU/CERUMO・INGING who started from the eighth grid was running in seventh.

Cassidy and Ishiura gradually pulled away from the rest of the field, as they were the only drivers who drove a lap in less than 1’26”, so the race looked to be a duel between them from the early stage. Although there was a moment that the two became tail-to-nose when they were lapping a back marker, the situation settled for a while with about one second gap between them.

Cassidy made a move first and came in to the pit on Lap 35 to change to the medium tires. The pit stop went smoothly and the KONDO RACING driver was running in interim fourth when he rejoined the race.

On the other hand, Ishiura started to push very hard in clean air as soon as Cassidy made his stop, trying to overcut him. Ishiura made his own pit stop five laps later and, despite the crewhaving changed his tires swiftly, he lost a few precious seconds due to a problem with engaging the first gear when he was leaving the pit. This cost him direly and Cassidy who was also pushing hard with a fresh set of tires to prevent Ishiura’s overcutting now had a good margin to the closest rival.

After resuming his lead position when all drivers had done their stops, Cassidy just cruised to the checkered flag to score his maiden victory in Super Formula in his second season. And KONDO RACING also had a reason to celebrate because this ended the team’s ten year victory drought in their major open wheel racing programs – Super Formula and Formula Nippon before that.

Following Ishiura, his teammate Kunimoto finished in third. Starting with the medium tires and leading the group of drivers who made the same choice, Kunimoto made an early pit stop on Lap 11 and tried to do a long stint with the soft tires. This undercutting strategy paid off and he gained a lot of positions at the end of the day, which led to the JMS P.MU/CERUMO・INGING’s double podium finishes.

ENGINEER VOICE

Noritaka Koguchi [THE YOKOHAMA RUBBER CO., LTD.]

“The conditions on the qualifying day were rapidly changing but, on the race day, the track surfaces remained dry and the temperatures rose. Given such conditions, we expected that the soft tires would last around 40 laps but it would a bit risky to go beyond that.

“The track temperature was 37 degrees Celsius at the time of race start. This was well within the working temperature range for the soft tires, so we thought that we would see the performance difference between the two specifications properly. In fact, the fastest drivers with the soft tires set lap times in a 1’25” bracket and, after ten laps or so, the lap times settled in the level of 1’27”.

“As for the medium tires, however, the drivers could only set the lap time in an 1’27” or 1’28” level. This meant there was a 1.5 to 2 second gap with the soft, which was a bit bigger than our expectations. If the gap was around one second, we might see a closer race between the drivers with different strategies. But today doing a long stint with the soft tires was a better strategy.

“Regarding the next Motegiround, we have a plenty of data for the two specifications of the Super Formula tires because we had already had the two spec races there since 2016. We expect that the teams and drivers who have a better understanding on how to use those tires will get the upper hand throughout the race weekend.”