【SUPER FORMULA Round 7 / Suzuka Circuit】

Fukuzumi Takes First Suzuka Win After Round 2 Near-miss
Team Impul Ends 11 Years Team Title Drought

SUPER FORMULA Round 7

Date	2021/10/30-31
Venue	Suzuka Circuit
Weather	Cloudy / Rain
Surface	Dry
Race Lap	30Laps (1Lap = 5,807m)

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• >>Result

Suzuka Circuit hosted the final round of the 2021 Super Formula Series. Although the driver’s championship had already been settled at the previous Motegi round, the team championship and the Rookie of The Year were still open when the concluding race weekend began under fine autumn sky.

Carenex Team Impul led the team championship with Team Mugen and Docomo Team Dandelion Racing following closely in second and third. However, many expected the title would go either to Team Impul or Dandelion Racing because, unlike these two-car teams, Mugen has only one car for the new driver’s champion, Tomoki Nojiri.

As for the Rookie of The Year, Sena Sakaguchi (P.Mu/Cerumo Inging) led, and Hiroki Otsu (Red Bull Mugen Team Goh) followed with a marginal gap. But Ritomo Miyata (Kuo Vantelin Team Tom’s) still had a slim chance for the title.

In Q1 of the qualifying session on Saturday, October 30th, Miyata proved himself as a RoTY favorite by beating Otsu to get the top slot of Group A. The youngsters shone in Group B as well, as Otsu led the group by setting the fastest time that was even better than Miyata’s.

The fastest drivers in Q2 were Miyata again in Group A and Toshiki Oyu (TCS Nakajima Racing) in Group B. Otsu also survived the battle for Q3, but Sakaguchi failed to follow his path. The Team Impul’s pair, Yuhi Sekiguchi and Ryo Hirakawa, also missed out on proceeding to Q3. In contrast, their team’s title rivals, Nirei Fukuzumi and Tadasuke Makino managed to go to the final qualifying section in Team Dandelion cars.

Then came Q3, which would decide the all-important pole position. Obviously, Miyata and Oyu attracted much attention because of their remarkable speed. Still, the fastest man was Nobuharu Matsushita (B-Max Racing Team), who put forth an impressive performance in this most crucial section. He ended the free practice in the morning in lowly 14th but showed a great rising after that, as he was fourth in Group B in Q1 and second in Q2 when he bettered his personal best time by 0.8 seconds.

Matsushita further improved his time in Q3 and beat Oyu by 0.2 seconds to win the pole position. It was the long-awaited first pole position for the B-Max driver who made his first appearance in Super Formula in 2018. Oyu came in second, followed by Fukuzumi and Makino. So it looked promising for Dandelion Racing in the team title battle.

Sunday, October 31st, saw a rainy morning. Consequently, the free practice had to be run on the wet track, but the weather gradually improved. Despite there being a light shower again in the early stage of the race, it didn’t affect much on the track conditions so that every driver could fight hard with the slick tires.

The drivers departed from the grids at 2 p.m. for the formation lap, and the 30-lap race began. Matsushita went through the first corner as the leader, followed by Oyu. Nojiri made an excellent start and jumped up to third from the fifth grid. Otsu was just behind Nojiri, but Fukuzumi fell back to fifth.

On Lap 2, the fight for second between Oyu and Nojiri became intense. On the pit straight, Nojiri used OverTake System and became almost abreast with Oyu. Then they raced wheel-to-wheel through to S-Curves, but they lightly touched each other there, which resulted in Oyu’s swerving off the track. Nojiri moved up to second, while Oyu lost a lot of positions, but the former received a five-minute penalty, which was added to his total race time after the finish, later for causing this incident.

Otsu was in chase of Nojiri for the moment, but Fukuzumi overtook him at the high-speed Turn 1 on Lap 3. Otsu then became the prey of Hirakawa’s attack, as the Team Impul driver was following Fukuzumi closely after making an excellent start.

On the other hand, Matsushita was leading the race smoothly, with no one threatening him from behind. However, on Lap 4, the race control instructed him to serve a drive-through penalty for a jump start, as his car slightly moved on the grid when he was waiting for the start. So Matsushita had to come into the pit lane at the end of Lap 5, and he dropped out of contention for the race win. It was a real shame, considering his speed in the qualifying and the race’s early laps, which might have led to his maiden victory.

Thus, Nojiri took over the lead. At the end of Lap 11, Fukuzumi visited the pit box to change his tires in a bid to undercut the Team Mugen driver. Thanks to the team’s superb job, Fukuzumi rejoined the race as the effective leader among the drivers who had already done the stop.

In reaction to this, Nojiri drove to the pit lane on the next lap and, after his team’s equally excellent tire change job, went back to the track still ahead of his direct opponent. But Fukuzumi had a clear advantage that he had already warmed up his tire during the previous lap. So, using OTS, he tried hard to pass Nojiri and made a successful move at the end of S-Curves. Furthermore, he overtook Hirakawa, who had just rejoined after the tire change, at Turn 2 on Lap 15. So Fukuzumi was gradually moving up through the field even in the interim order.

When Yuji Kunimoto (KCMG) came into the pit on Lap 19, Sekiguchi was the only driver yet to make the stop. The Impul driver was building the gap with other drivers who already had the fresh tires, setting the lap times comparable with or better than the others. It seemed almost impossible for him to overcut Fukuzumi, as the gap between them was only about 19 seconds, but his main task was to stay ahead of Makino to grab the team’s title.

On Lap 27, Sekiguchi finally made the pit stop and resumed racing in fourth, just ahead of Otsu. If he could keep this position to the end, Team Impul would win the title by two points. But Otsu was ready to attack Sekiguchi, who had used up all his OTS time until then. So Otsu used OTS and tried to pass him at Chicane. Still, Sekiguchi managed to fend it off with the on-the-limit braking. Then, after defending the position on the most vulnerable out lap, Sekiguchi began to pull away from Otsu.

Meanwhile, when Sekiguchi went into the pit lane, there was no one running ahead of Fukuzumi. And the Dandelion Racing driver drove the remaining three laps safely to claim his first victory at Suzuka, after missing it out in the second round on the same track. By finishing the race in second, Hirakawa contributed to the team to win the title, together with Sekiguchi, who came in fourth. Nojiri ended the race in third, and Otsu took fifth place and the Rookie of The Year crown.