2022 SUPER FORMULA Round 3 Report

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The third round of the 2022 Super Formula series took place at Suzuka Circuit. The race was run on the wet track, following the dry qualifying session on the previous day. Starting from the ninth grid, Nobuharu Matsushita (B-Max Racing Team) steadily moved up the field and grabbed his first Super Formula victory by making a stunning overtake toward the end.

With only two weeks interval after the two-round first race meeting, the Super Formula fraternity moved to Suzuka for the second meeting. Compared to Fuji Speedway, where the first two races were held, the race track in the Mie prefecture tends to put a much higher load on the tires. And this third round was run in the one-race weekend format, which holds the free practice session on Saturday morning and the qualifying in the afternoon.

In Group A of Q1, Sacha Fenestraz (Kondo Racing) filled the top slot after proving his speed in the free practice. But Ren Sato (Team Goh), who had a strong showing in the season opener, ended the session in eighth, which meant he failed to survive for Q2. Things didn’t go well for another young gun, Ukyo Sasahara (Team Mugen), as he hit traffic on his qualifying attempt, ending up as the group’s slowest.

Tomoki Nojiri (Team Mugen) led Group B, and he was the only driver who went around the circuit in less than one minute and 37 seconds. Kenta Yamashita (Kondo Racing) and Ritomo Miyata (Kuo Vantelin Team Tom’s) followed in second and third, so this group’s top three were the same as the free practice’s three fastest drivers.

In Q2, Nojiri went out on the track at a very well-calculated timing and clocked 1’36″352, which was much faster than his best time in Q1. And this was good enough to win the pole position. The reigning champion was strong at every circuit last year, but, surprisingly, he had never sat on the top grid at Suzuka. So, he looked pretty satisfied after the session, as becoming the fastest qualifier at this globally famous Grand Prix circuit is every racing driver’s dream.

While there was no rainfall, the heavy gray sky covered the circuit on Saturday. Like the first meeting, the knock-out system qualifying had two steps, Q1 and Q2.

Yamashita and Fensetraz came in second and third. They shone in the first and second round, respectively, but Kondo Racing’s teammates secured good starting grids this time.

It was raining in the Suzuka area from the early morning on Sunday, and there was no sign of it letting up. Thus, the race started in the light rain. Since the race control declared “Wet Track,” there would be no obligatory tire change during the race. Therefore, the pure battles on the track between drivers would decide the outcome of this race, with no influence from the teams’ strategy.

Generally, it is more important to be in the lead position in a wet race because only the leader can have better visibility without water spray from the cars ahead. Nojiri made a good start and led the field when they entered Turn 1. Yamashita, who shared the front row with Nojiri, followed in second, but Fenestraz and Miyata, starting from the second row, lost their positions because of less than ideal getaways. Consequently, Tadasuke Makino (Docomo Team Dandelion Racing) emerged in third, with Sho Tsuboi (P.Mu/Cerumo Inging) and Matsushita behind him, as a result of having good acceleration from the 7th and 9th grid, respectively.

Thanks to the good visibility, Nojiri built a 2.3-second gap with Yamashita during the opening lap and started to pull away from the rest of the field, setting the race’s fastest lap, 1’55″285, on Lap 3. Then, of course, Yamashita tried to chase him, but the Kondo Racing driver’s pace suddenly dropped after the first four or five laps. Yamashita’s lap time became slower than two minutes flat on Lap 6, which allowed Makino to overtake him at Reversed Bank Corner on the next lap.

Tsuboi fell into a similar difficulty with Yamashita. As his speed declined, Matsushita took the opportunity and came up to fourth on Lap 7. Yamashita and Tsuboi visited their pits simultaneously on Lap 11 to turn the situation around, only to lose more time because their tire changes at the stop took longer than ideal.

When Nojiri completed the first ten laps of the 31-lap race, he was about ten seconds ahead of Makino, followed by Matsushita three more seconds behind. But soon, Nojiri’s lap time fell to the two-minute level. This meant Makino and Matsushita’s pace became relatively better than the race leader, and the gap between the top two was reduced to about six seconds on Lap 14.

At the same time, the battle for second between Makino and Matsushita heated up. On Lap 22, Matsushita closed in to just 0.4 seconds behind Makino and then tried to dive into the inside at Chicane after 130R Corner. But Makino didn’t allow him to come in and kept the position when they entered into Lap 23.

They were almost side-by-side on the pit straight, and the gap between them at the control line was a mere 0.078 seconds. While they continued the dog fight until Turn 1 by placing their cars to take the upper hand over each other, Makino seemed to win it and lead Matsushita by a little less than one second.

However, the gap shrunk quickly again on Lap 27, and the B-Max driver finally outbraked Makino at Chicane and got the better line on the final corner.

Thus, Matsushita was now running in second but didn’t stop there. He shaved off 1.7 seconds in just one lap from 3.1 seconds Nojiri had on the lap before. On Lap 29, he caught up with the reigning champion and came side-by-side on the main straight immediately after they crossed the control line. Then, he made a successful move to overtake Nojiri at Turn 1 from the outside!

During the remaining two laps, Matsushita expanded his lead to Nojiri to more than five seconds and received the checkered flag first. This was not only his first Super Formula victory in his third full season, after his debut in the series in 2018, but also the first win for B-Max Racing Team, which began its Super Formula campaign in 2017.

Despite the defeat with just three laps to go, Nojiri got on the podium for the third consecutive race this season and kept the championship lead. And Makino made his first podium finish this year.