【SUPER FORMULA Round 2 / Suzuka】

Nojiri Widens Championship Lead By Second Straight Win.
Rookie Alesi Makes Impressive Super Formula Debut.

SUPER FORMULA Round 2

Date	2021/04/24-25
Venue	Suzuka Circuit
Weather	Fine
Surface	Dry
Race Lap	30Laps (1Lap = 5,807m)

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The second round of the 2021 Super Formula championship was held under the traditional name of Suzuka 2&4 Race. Nirei Fukuzumi (Docomo Team Dandelion Racing) started the race from the pole position and led the early part of it until he had a tire failure, which forced him to retire. Tomoki Nojiri (Team Mugen), the eventual winner, earned the second consecutive win following the season opener victory.

Kazuki Nakajima (Kuo Vantelin Team Tom’s) was absent from this round because he had WEC (World Endurance Championship) commitment. The team selected Giuliano Alesi, the son of ex-Grand Prix driver, as Nakajima’s stand-in. Alesi had a busy weekend since he also drove in the supporting Super Formula Rights race. Still, he was fit enough for this double duty and attracted much attention from fans by displaying his talent in fascinating battles.

B-Max Racing, which skipped the opening event, joined the series with Nobuharu Matsushita behind the wheel. He debuted in Super Formula in 2018 and moved to the international FIA F2 series next season. Then he made non-regular appearances in the second half of this series last year, scoring a podium finish in the final round. Many fans wanted him to drive a Super Formula car again this year, and it came true in this second round.

Fukuzumi already showed a strong performance in the free practice before securing the pole position in the qualifying session. The winner of the season’s first race, Nojiri, solidly came in second, and Toshiki Oyu (TCS Nakajima Racing) in third, which meant the season opener’s top three finishers took the top three grids here in Fuji. They were followed by Ryo Hirakawa (Carenex Team Impul) and Ukyo Sasahara (Docomo Team Dandelion Racing). Alesi made it to Q3 and ended the session in the eighth, and Matsushita was qualified in the 12th.

The obscured sky on Saturday turned clear on the race day. With the air/surface temperatures at 23/33 degrees Celsius, the 30 lap race got underway at 14:30. Unfortunately, when they left the grids for the formation lap, Sena Sakaguchi (P.Mu/Cerumo Inging) on the 15th gird stalled, so he had to start the race from the bottom of the grids. Except for his mishap, however, all drivers duly completed the starting procedures, and the red signals blacked out.

While Fukuzumi and Nojiri started properly, Oyu’s getaway went wrong, as the engine rev dropped when his car began to roll. As a result, the Nakajima Racing driver lost many positions even before approaching the first corner, and Hirakawa and Sasahara moved up to third and fourth, respectively. Alesi’s first start in Super Formula was a poor one, too; thus, he completed the first lap in 12th.

Fukuzumi immediately pulled away from the field at a tremendous pace, but when he exited the Spoon Curve and came on to the back straight on Lap 9, his right-hand rear tire suddenly failed. With Nojiri, Hirakawa, and others passing by, Hirakawa crawled back to the pit lane and went straight into his garage. As the car had substantial damage on suspension, he had no choice but to retire.

When Nojiri took over the lead, he already had more than two seconds gap with Hirakawa. The Team Mugen driver continued smoothly and made his mandatory tire change at the end of Lap 14. Reacting to this, Hirakawa pushed hard by using the OverTake System (OTS) to reduce Nojiri’s lead and came into the pit on the next lap.

Thanks to the team’s perfect job, Hirakawa went back to the track ahead of Nojiri. But the latter had an advantage of the well-warmed tires and used OTS to overtake the former promptly. So, the pit stops didn’t change the situation between the top two.

Shortly after that, Yuji Kunimoto (KCMG) spun at the exit of 130R Corner and crashed into the barrier due to the failure of his right-hand rear tire. The incident caused the Safety Car deployment.

All drivers except for the Kuo Vanterin Team Tom’s duo had already done their tire change pit stops by this time. The team called the drivers into the pit at the end of Lap 16, when the SC boards were shown, and managed to send Ritomo Miyata back to the track in the sixth, Alesi in 11th, both gaining a few positions by their timely stops.

The racing was resumed on Lap 20, and the restart saw the closely fought battles all over the field. Miyata and Sho Tsuboi (P.Mu/Cermo Inging) utilized OTS to battle for sixth, racing hard from Turn 2 to S-Curves, but Naoki Yamamoto watched them quietly from behind.

By the rules, OTS is disabled for 100 seconds used by the driver, so Miyata and Tsuboi lost the weapon until the next lap. And the veteran Yamamoto took advantage of it to overtake Tsuboi just before they completed the lap. Then Tsuboi did the same on the next lap against Yamamoto to regain seventh, but their close side-by-side battle delighted the fans.

Aspiring a point finish, Alesi won the wheel-to-wheel battle with Kenta Yamashita (Kondo Racing) from Turn 1 to S-Curves and came up to tenth. He also managed to overtake Oyu, who used up his OTS time and eventually got two championship points by finishing the race in ninth.

In contrast, the race was pretty quiet at the front of the field. Especially, each of the top three drove a rather solitary race until the final lap. Running in second, Hirakawa tried hard to reduce the gap with the leader using his remaining OTS time, but his effort ended up in vain. Thus, Nojiri scored his second consecutive win, and Hirakawa got on the podium for the first time this year. Sasahara’s third-place finish meant his maiden podium in Super Formula.