2022 SUPER FORMULA Round 8 Report

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Having witnessed Yamamoto’s long-absent Super Formula victory on Saturday, the eighth round of the 2022 Super Formula championship took place at the same Mobility Resort Motegi on Sunday, August 21st.

Unlike the day before, it was a scorching summer day, which was typical for the mid-August Motegi round. The winner of this race was Yuhi Sekiguchi (Carenex Team Impul). Starting from the seventh grid, he quickly moved up through the field and fended off the teammate’s eleventh-hour charge to grab his first win in three years.

The forecast said there would be no chance of rain on Sunday. The sky cleared about noon, and the mid-August summer sunshine heated everything at the track. However, it was still slightly overcast in the morning when the qualifying session was held. In addition, the track surfaces were dusty because of the rainfall, which finally stopped around midnight.

TCS Nakajima Racing drivers dominated Q1, as Naoki Yamamoto led Group A, and Toshiki Oyu was also the fastest in Group B. After beating his teammate’s time by 0.3 seconds in Q1, Oyu improved his Q1 qualifying time and won the pole position, setting the fastest sector times in Sectors 2 and 3 on the lap. For the driver who has always said, “The speed is my thing,” this was the long-awaited first Super Formula pole position in his third season.

Oyu shared the front row with Sacha Fenestraz (Kondo Racing), followed by Tomoki Nojiri (Team Mugen) in third. The Carenex Team Impul pair survived the fight for Q2, and Ryo Hirakawa secured the sixth grid, beating his teammate Sekiguchi who came in seventh, but the time difference between them was just 0.001 seconds!

Thanks to the strong sunlight, the air/track temperatures rose quickly and reached 31/45 degrees centigrade when the race was about to start, so many parasols and reflective sheets to create shade were seen on the grids. The 37-lap race got underway at 14:30.

Oyu rocketed from the pole position and led the field with a certain gap when they entered Turn 1. “It was the best race start in my whole career!” said Oyu later. On the other hand, Fenestraz’s getaway was less than perfect, which allowed Nojiri to pass him.

Down to Turn 5, Hirakawa and Sekiguchi were involved in a close fight, but both still overtook Tadasuke Makino (Docomo Team Dandelion Racing), who started from the fifth grid. The Team Impul pair continued to trade blows after that, as Sekiguchi managed to get ahead of Hirakawa at 90 Degrees Corner, and then the latter did the same at the same corner on the next lap.

The field completed the ninth lap, and the pit stop window opened. The first one who steered to the pit entry was Sekiguchi, whose intention was to push hard in a less crowded space on the track using the fresh tires and reduce the gap with the leaders. After the tire change, Sekiguchi rejoined the race in the space where he wanted to be and started to lap at a pace that was more than a second faster than Oyu’s. Therefore, the gap between the Team Impul driver and the race leader began to shrink rapidly.

On the next lap, Makino running in seventh visited the pit lane and followed Sekiguchi’s path to close in the leaders, utilizing the performance of fresher tires. Their only concern was traffic, but both drivers demonstrated their excellent race craft to overtake the cars in front one after another on the race track, which is often described as “not overtake-friendly.” And on Lap 15, Oyu’s lead against Sekiguchi shrunk to just 24 seconds.

While Oyu didn’t react to this situation yet, Nojiri did. He came into the pit at the end of Lap 15, but Sekiguchi was already ahead when he returned to the track. On top of this, his cold tires on the out lap meant he was vulnerable to Makino’s attack at Turn 4, so the reigning champion dropped to fourth from second.

Oyu and Fenestraz made their pit stop one lap later. They also fell behind Sekiguchi and Nojiri before being overtaken by Makino on the track.

Now the interim leader was Hirakawa, who chose the opposite strategy from others and stayed out, and he was about 20 seconds ahead of his teammate at the end of Lap 20. Considering how long it would take for Hirakawa to make a stop and change tires at the pit, Sekiguchi seemed to need to cut down the gap a little more. However, even after 20-plus laps, Hirakawa kept going at a comparable pace with Sekiguchi, who had fresher tires. Therefore, the distance between the teammates remained almost the same for a while.

After setting his fastest lap at the time, Hirakawa headed to the pit at the end of Lap 30. His intention was obvious: pushing as hard as possible for the remaining seven laps with the new tires.

Hirakawa rejoined the race in third behind Sekiguchi and Makino and started his second stint from the fourth, as Nojiri overtook him at the first corner after Hirakawa exited the pit lane. Helped by the superior grip of the brand-new rubbers, Hirakawa came close to Nojiri at Hair Pin Corner on Lap 32 and passed him at 90 Degrees Corner from the outside to everyone’s surprise. Two laps later, he overtook Makino at Turn 5, which meant that now Carenex Team Impul drivers formed 1-2.

When they entered the final lap, the gap between them was just 0.4 seconds. Sekiguchi was the first of two to use the help of OverTake System to pull away from the teammate. But Hirakawa didn’t react at once, as he waited for Sekiguchi to use up his OTS duration and then turned his system on. Finally, at the penultimate corner of the race, 90 Degrees Corner, where they fought hard on the opening laps, Hirakawa tried to overtake from the outside as Sekiguchi took the defensive inside line. However, Hirakawa’s car bobbled a little on the curb at the exit, which was when Sekiguchi won the race.

Sekiguchi’s last Super Formula victory traced back to the second round of the 2019 season at Autopolis, so this was his first in three years. Hirakawa lost the race by a hair but reduced the point gap with Nojiri to 34 points by finishing second and ahead of the championship leader. The third place went to Makino.

From the championship point of view, Nojiri retained the top slot by finishing in fourth, and Fenestraz, who came in sixth, also kept his second place in the standings, followed by Hirakawa in third.