2020 SUPER FORMULA Round 7 Report

【SUPER FORMULA Round 7 / Fuji】

Season finale sees championship-deciding battle.
Yamamoto celebrates his third Super Formula title.

SUPER FORMULA Round 7

Date 2020/12/20
Venue Fuji Speedway
Weather Fine
Surface Dry
Race Lap 40Laps
(1Lap = 4,563m)
2020 SUPER FORMULA Round 7

The final round of the 2020 Super Formula series took place at Fuji Speedway on December 20th. Sho Tsuboi (JMS P.Mu/Cerumo Inging) won the race, with Toshiki Oyu (TCS Nakajima Racing) and Nobuharu Matsushita (Buzz Racing with B-Max) coming in second and third respectively so that it could be called as the new generation podium lineup. Naoki Yamamoto (Docomo Team Dandelion Racing) conquered a head-to-head battle for the championship and claimed his third Super Formula title.

The uncommon 2020 season began belatedly in August and ended in late December with this final Fuji round. There was no worry about the potential cancelation due to snowfall, as the weather was fine throughout the race weekend. But clear skies in the winter season meant the temperatures were dropping sharply. The track temperatures in shady areas were quite low, and it went down below zero degrees Celsius in extreme cases.

As was the case in the previous Suzuka rounds, the teams were authorized to use the tire warmers this time again. Still, it wasn’t easy for the drivers to warm up tires and keep their temperature properly on the track.

Four drivers could win the championship when they headed to this final round. In the order of positions in the point standings, they were Ryo Hirakawa (Itochu Enex Team Impul), Yamamoto, Tomoki Nojiri (Team Mugen), and Nick Cassidy (Vantelin Team Tom’s). For Hirakawa and Yamamoto, a race win would simply lead to the championship title, whereas the chances for the rest of them depended on other drivers’ finishing positions.

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The low temperatures and dry track surface helped the drivers to improve their qualifying times. As a result, every driver set a better lap time than the existing track record even in Q1. Nojiri eventually clocked 1’19″972 in Q3 and secured his second pole position in 2020. Tsuboi followed him with his best time under 1’20” in second, and Yamamoto came in third, adding a championship point to his tally.

Hirakawa made his way into Q3, but he couldn’t improve his time in the closing minutes, so he had to settle for the eighth. And Cassidy’s qualifying time in Q1 was deleted because of exceeding the track limit, which meant he was placed at the bottom of the grids.

Even before the race got underway, there were a couple of accidents. During the eight-minute warm-up session, Yuhi Sekiguchi (Itochu Enex Team Impul) had a fire in his car. While he could walk away from it, the session had to stop for a while. And his car was damaged beyond repair in time for joining the race. So, his 2020 season ended here, before starting the final race.

When the field began the formation laps, Tatiana Calderon (ThreeBond Drago Corse) stalled her engine, and she had to start the race from the pit lane. Then Charles Milesi (Buzz Racing with B-Max) spun and stopped his car during the laps, becoming the race’s first retirement. So, the 40-lap race started with 17 cars on the grids.

Tsuboi led the field when they entered the first corner. Nojiri dropped to third, as Matsushita also passed him, making a better get away from the fourth grid. Yamamoto followed Nojiri in fourth, but the championship rival, Hirakawa, was closing into him. The Team Impul driver made a good start and moved up to sixth during the opening lap. Then he overtook Ukyo Sasahara (Team Mugen), which meant he was running in fifth, just behind Yamamoto.

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The first round of the championship battle began. Still, Hirakawa had difficulty finding an opportunity to attack Yamamoto because he would lose a lot of downforce when he came close enough to make a move. On the pit straight on Lap 8, Hirakawa used the OverTake System and attacked, but Yamamoto’s defensive drive surpassed it. So, the battle is stalled for several laps.

Then Hirakawa tried to undercut Yamamoto, came into the pit at the end of Lap 14 and rejoined the race in a position between Nojiri and Oyu, who already had a fresh set of tires. Although Oyu passed Hirakawa because of the advantage of warmer tires, the latter was still effective third at the time.

Yamamoto reacted to the rival’s move and made a pit stop on the next lap. As his pit stop time was almost equal to that of Hirakawa, the Dandelion driver found himself running between Nojiri and Oyu, and then he was passed by the latter in the same way with Hirakawa. And this was the beginning of the championship battle’s second round.

Yamamoto’s out-lap was the biggest chance that Hirakawa couldn’t miss out. Hirakawa became almost abreast his direct opponent at Turn 1, and they went through to 100R Curve side-by-side. Then Hirakawa finally managed to get ahead of Yamamoto at ADVAN Corner, as he was on the inside line there.

But Yamamoto didn’t give up. He followed Hirakawa closely throughout the third sector and came up to the pit straight nose to tail with the Team Impul driver. At the end of the straight, he used OTS and outbraked Hirakawa, who had already used up his OTS duration. Thus, their battle came to an end, as Hirakawa couldn’t find another chance to rechallenge Yamamoto, although the gap between them was less than a second for a while.

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However, another threat to Yamamoto was coming, as Cassidy was looming through the field. Being forced to start from the back end grid, Cassidy gained positions at the start and kept pushing to overcut the other drivers by putting off his pit stop as late as possible. The New Zealander needed to win this race to become the Super Formula champion. Just finishing ahead of Yamamoto wasn’t enough for him to make it, which meant he had to beat Tsuboi, the effective leader then. So Yamamoto had a reason to keep his cool, even when Cassidy managed to get ahead of him.

Turning to the race leaders, Nojiri made his pit stop earlier than others to undercut his rivals and make up the positions he lost at the start. However, there was a mishap at the stop, as one of the wheel nuts fell away during the tire change, which cost him a few seconds. Then he had a puncture because of another problem with his wheel and had to stop the car. Starting the race from the pole position, he had some chance of winning the championship, so ending up with retirement was a huge grief for him.

 

When Cassidy finally visited his pit, Tsuboi took over the lead. Oyu and Matsushita pushed him hard towards the end, and Cassidy also joined this group for the last few laps, but Tsuboi held on to his lead until the checkered flag fell.

Until the previous race, the 2020 Super Formula series has seen as many winners as the number of races, but Tsuboi became the first and only two-time winner this season and ended the championship in third. The victor in the last Suzuka round, and the podium finisher in the second straight race, Oyu, won the rookie of the year award. Matsushita, who joined the series from the fourth round, took the last place on the podium. So, it was quite a new look there on the rostrum.

Finishing in fifth, and ahead of Hirakawa, Yamamoto earned his third Super Formula driver’s title. And he achieved the “double title,” as he won the Super GT championship this year as well, for the second time since 2018.

DRIVER VOICE

Sho Tsuboi [JMS P.MU/CERUMO・INGING]

—Result : Winner—
“I didn’t expect I could get the second grid in the qualifying, but I believe it altered how things were going this weekend and led to this race win today. I dominated the race after taking the lead at the start, but it wasn’t an easy race at all because Matsushita stayed close behind me, and Oyu swiftly closed the gap with me in the last ten laps. It was really a satisfying race for me. I am grateful to my team for preparing a perfect car.”

Naoki Yamamoto [DOCOMO TEAM DANDELION RACING]

—Result : 5th. (Series Champion)—
“If you look at the race result, I took only fifth place today, and it was disappointing for sure. But I believe I could just commit myself to doing what I need to secure the championship title, in terms of driving and fighting with others. Last year, I missed out on a chance to win the title, which was so frustrating not only for me but for my engineer and team. Therefore, I was desperate to earn the championship and make them feel happy about the 2020 season that they fought through with me. I have devoted every effort to it, to be honest. And I am very, very happy with the result because this was the fruit of our team effort, and I owe this championship title to everybody in my team.”

ENGINEER VOICE

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

“The season was concluded by another fantastic race. Under very low-temperature conditions, the teams were permitted to use the tire warmers again, as was the case in the previous Suzuka round. And there was no serious problem or accident related to the device on this second occasion to use it. We saw the qualifying time under 1’20”, but it wasn’t a surprise for us because our target has been somewhere in the 1’20” bracket, which was already reached in the testing in March this year.

“We were worried about the tire wear a little bit, as the race pace was generally fast, and the lap time level was almost equal to the old track record. But Nick Cassidy, who drove the longest stint in the race, 30 laps until his pit stop, could use his first set of tires very nicely. I believe this fact reflected the very high level of the Super Formula drivers and the teams’ ability to set up their cars.

“It was a frantic season, but we feel relieved that it ended safely. Probably, for the next season, we will have less testing session than we had in the past. But we will make every possible effort to assist the Super Formula drivers, so that they will show fantastic races like they did this year.”