2021 SUPER FORMULA Round 1 Report

【SUPER FORMULA Round 1 / Fuji】

After an unusually short off-season, the 2021 Super Formula championship series kicked off at Fuji Speedway.
For this race meeting, 18 cars, all of which had identical SF19 chassis, gathered at Fuji, where the cherry blossoms were blooming.

SUPER FORMULA Round 1

Date 2021/04/03-04
Venue Fuji Speedway
Weather Cloudy / Rain
Surface Dry & Wet
Race Lap 41Laps
(1Lap = 4,563m)
2021 SUPER FORMULA Round 1

The most important topic during the winter was the reigning champion’s transfer. The three-time champion, Naoki Yamamoto, joined TCS Nakajima Racing this year. It is the team he debuted with in the Super Formula, known as Formula Nippon at the time, in 2010.

The series welcomed three full-time rookies who are eligible for the rookie of the year title. They are Hiroki Otsu (Red Bull Mugen Team Goh), Ritomo Miyata (Kuo Vantelin Team Tom’s), and Sena Sakaguchi (P.Mu/Cerumo Inging). In addition, Kazuto Kotaka (KCMG), Ukyo Sasahara (Docomo Team Dandelion Racing), and Yuichi Nakayama (Kondo Racing) stepped in for three absentees, who had to skip this round for various reasons.

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There was a 90-minute practice session on the qualifying day. Tomoki Nojiri (Team Mugen) was the fastest driver in this session, beating Nirei Fukuzumi (Docomo Team Dandelion Racing) by 0.1 seconds, which was a big gap in Super Formula, where a thousandth of a second difference often decides the qualifying positions.

Miyata came in third as the highest placed Toyota powered driver. While he is considered a rookie, he already secured a front-row starting position in his occasional appearances last year. Ryo Hirakawa (Carenex Team Impul) followed in fourth, as he wanted to start the season with a good result for his championship title hope.

The unexpected happened in the early part of the qualifying session. The reigning champion, Yamamoto, lost out in Q1. Even after that, Kenta Yamashita (Kondo Racing) and Sho Tsuboi (P.Mu/Cerumo Inging), who have been consistently good at this race track, failed to make their way into Q3. After all, Nojiri won the season opener’s pole position by setting the fastest times in all three sections.

Toshiki Oyu (TCS Nakajima Racing) sat on the front row along with Nojiri, more than 0.2 seconds behind the pole sitter. Sasahara secured the third grid. The Mugen driver was the stand-in for Tadasuke Makino, who was absent because of illness.

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On the race day, the forecast said it would rain in the afternoon when the race was to be run. Therefore, the teams used the 30-minute free practice session before the race to get ready for the possible weather change. Yamamoto, who had a very disappointing qualifying session and settled for the lowly 16th grid, set the fastest time in the session, so expectations were running high that how he would come close to the front in the race.

There was a thick cloud over the track but no rain yet, when the 41-lap race got underway. The early leader was Oyu, as Nojiri made a bad start. “I had a slight concern with my clutch, and it didn’t react exactly as I wanted,” the pole-sitter said later. So Sasahara and Fukuzumi on the second row put pressure on Nojiri, but he managed to stay in second. At the end of Lap 1, the top four were Oyu, Nojiri, Fukuzumi, and Sasahara.

Behind them, a few drivers, including Otsu and Yuhi Sekiguchi (Carenex Team Impul), made better getaway than others, but these two collided and damaged their cars. In the aftermath of the incident, the mid-field group fell into a panic situation, but Yamamoto made the most out of it and managed to move up to tenth.

Yamamoto was the first to come into the pit when the pit stop window opened since he tried to gain some more positions by taking a different strategy from his rivals. Unfortunately, however, his tire change didn’t go smoothly, and he lost some precious time in the pit box. As a result, Yamamoto rejoined the race in interim 17th, as Kazuya Oshima (NTT Communications Rookie), who made a pit stop on the same lap, got ahead of him.

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OverTake System (OTS) allowance was doubled to 200 seconds this year from the previous 100 seconds. This change indeed increased the battles during the race, for example, those between Miyata and Sakaguchi, or between Hirakawa and Tsuboi, both in the mid-field group. Turning to the race leaders, Nojiri suddenly closed in on Oyu as the latter’s pace slightly dropped. On Lap 10, Nojiri overtook Oyu at Dunlop Corner by using OTS to become the race leader, and he immediately started to pull awa

Oyu also had to give way to Fukuzumi on Lap 24, so he went down to third. With Sasahara rapidly closing on to him, Oyu made the pit to change his tires. And there was a huge space ahead of him when he went back to the track, which meant he could push freely to reduce the more-than-a-minute gap with Nojiri.

 

Although Nojiri lost a little time when he was lapping backmarkers, he could still keep Oyu away until the closing stage of the race. On Lap 29, the race control declared “Wet Track,” as it started to drizzle, and the track conditions were becoming slippery and challenging to drive. However, Nojiri went on at a fast and consistent pace and continued to lead the race.

With only two laps to go, he finally made the pit stop. As he had an over 50 second gap with Oyu when he came in, and thanks to his crew’s perfect tire change job, Nojiri could resume racing still ahead of Oyu. Now the race leader had a 12-second margin.

But now, Nojiri needed a few laps to warm up his fresh tires, and Oyu knew it. The latter utilized OTS to close the gap quickly, and Nojiri’s lead was reduced to just 3.8 seconds when they completed the penultimate lap.

Still, the Team Mugen driver kept his cool and finished the race 1.5 seconds ahead of Oyu. It might be a disappointing result for Oyu, but this was the third straight podium finish since the last part of the 2020 season. Fukuzumi filled the final slot on the podium.

DRIVER VOICE

Tomoki Nojiri [TEAM MUGEN]

—Result : Winner–
“The car ran really well from the beginning, so I have had a good and solid race weekend. During the race, I faced difficult conditions, asking myself, “When would the rain start to fall?” But I could drive steadily even in such a situation because the team gave me this great package. So, I just did what I could, staying focused until the end. I couldn’t have asked for a better start of the season, especially considering the prospect of winning the title.”

ENGINEER VOICE

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

“For the 2021 season, we supply the dry and wet tires, each has only one specification, for all Super Formula cars. The race control made the “Wet” declaration halfway through it, but I barely saw any raindrops in the pit area. It seemed some parts of the track became slippery, but it’s driver’s call what tires are better suited to the particular conditions. Although we could certainly see some drivers had hard times with the slippery surfaces, they must have thought the dry tires were still faster in those conditions.

“Most of the drivers were racing at their own consistent pace, and they were able to push when they should, according to their strategies. So, I thought no one struggled with the tire wear, which would harm their pace. I suppose this shows the teams and the drivers now understand our tires’ behavior really well, as they had plenty of track time during the winter tests. “All in all, the fans must have been pleased with the race because many overtakings were seen. I anticipate another exciting race in the next round at Suzuka.”