【SUPER FORMULA Round 7 / Suzuka】

Final round sees tremendous fight for championship title.
Yamamoto becomes champ of SF14 car’s last season.

SUPER FORMULA Round 7

Date	2018/10/26-28
Venue	Suzuka Circuit
Weather	Fine
Surface	Dry
Race Lap	43Laps (1Lap = 5,807m)

• >>Report
• >>Result

The season finale of the 2018 Super Formula series began with the practice sessions on Friday, October 26th. Yuhi Sekiguchi (Itochu Enex Team Impul) set the overall fastest time in these sessions with only had a mathematical chance for the championship title. On the other hand, the championship leader Nick Cassidy (Kondo Racing) started the weekend with eighth, followed by another title favorite Naoki Yamamoto (Team Mugen) in ninth. The reigning champ Hiroaki Ishiura (JMS P.Mu/Cerumo Inging), who was closely behind Cassidy by four points in the championship, was 11th.

While the track was damp because of an overnight rain, the sky was becoming clear on Saturday morning. Therefore, the season’s last fight for the pole position was run on totally dry track surfaces. All the sections of the qualifying session – the medium tires were used in Q1 and then the soft tires in Q2 and Q3 – were dominated by Yamamoto.

His main rival in the title fight, Cassidy, got the fourth grid, but his teammate Kenta Yamashita performed better and secured the front row grid alongside of Yamamoto. With two cars in the first two rows, Kondo Racing’s chance for their first team championship became more likely. Kazuki Nakajima (Vantelin Team Tom’s) sat on the third grid, which was his best qualifying result of the season.

The weather was fine on Sunday, October 27th, with the air/track temperatures at 25/30 degrees Celsius when the race began but these were the high of the day, as it became cloudy after that and the temperatures dropped. Such weather conditions would certainly influence how the drivers use them during the race, so their tire choices were a major focus.

Yamamoto made a perfect start. Behind him, Nakajima who has a good reputation as a master of racing start tried to catch Yamashita but they completed the opening lap in the order of their starting grids. Cassidy chose to start with the medium tires, unlike the top three who took the soft ones, but his choice backfired in the early stage, as he was passed by Kodai Tsukagoshi (Real Racing) at Turn 1 of the second lap. The Kiwi, however, kept a consistent pace with the medium, looking to a fight back in the later stage.

Yamamoto was quickly pulling away from Yamashita, making the most of his soft tires and running in a clean air. The gap grew to six seconds on Lap 10 and Yamamoto was running in his own through the early stages of the race, leading the championship rival Cassidy in fifth by more than ten seconds.

Among the top three, Nakajima was the first to make a pit stop, as he did it at the end of Lap 14. Yamashita followed his path on four laps later and, highly motivated by the team championship battle, the team did a good job in the stop for Yamashita and sent him back to the track ahead of Nakajima. Thus, Tom’s driver’s attempt to under cut failed. Yamamoto made his stop on Lap 19, which meant he was going to race with the medium tires for the remaining 24 laps, and resumed racing as the effective race leader.

At the time, the interim leader, Cassidy, was ahead of Yamamoto by around 30 seconds. The gap once started to shrink, because the former was on the worn medium tires whereas the latter on the fresh ones. The Kiwi, however, then began a hard push to increase the gap before his own pit stop and, when he came in the pit lane at the end of Lap 29, he was leading Yamamoto by 32 seconds.

Cassidy rejoined the race behind Yamamoto but he managed to close the gap to 7.5seconds which had been more than ten seconds in the early stage. Moreover, he now had the fresh soft tires and, on the other hand, his main rival was on the medium. Using this to his advantage, Cassidy was now rapidly closing the gap with Yamamoto by almost a second per lap.

On Lap 34 when all drivers had done their pit stops, Yamamoto’s lead was reduced to just 3.5 seconds. But on the next lap, Cassidy was hit by a decisive mishap, as he had to catch the car which was getting loose because of some gravel on the track at S Curves that was spread by James Rossiter (Vantelin Team Tom’s) who had gone off there. Now the Kiwi’s progress went backward a little and the gap with the race leader increased to 4.8 seconds again.

The gravel temporarily harmed the grip of Cassidy’s tires but he started to push again when the grip came back. And then Yamamoto did a lock up at the entry of chicane on Lap 42 of the 43 lap race, which meant they entered the final lap with only 0.8 seconds gap between them!

Using the overtake system each other, they did a spectacular battle through the one remaining lap but Yamamoto got a slight advantage at Spoon Curve and kept the position until the checkered flag was waved. This third victory of the season gave Yamamoto his second Super Formula driver’s title.

Cassidy finished in second for the second time this season but lost out the championship just by one point. However, as Yamashita got on the podium with him by finishing in third, Kondo Racing earned the team championship for the first time.