2024 SUPER FORMULA Round 1 Report

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The 2024 Super Formula season started earlier than usual on the second weekend of March at Suzuka Circuit. It meant the teams had only two weeks between the collective pre-season testing in mid-February and this opening round. As a cold air front affected the famous Grand Prix circuit during the race weekend, it was mid-winter-like weather, having even a temporary light snow on Saturday when the qualifying session was held.

At the beginning of a new season, the Super Formula series offered many exciting topics. Regarding race cars, every team must now use the standard suspension dampers with the exact specifications, as has already been the case with chassis and tires. Yokohama Rubber continues to supply the series with sustainable racing tires—33% of their raw materials are renewable for dry tires.

As for the participating drivers, the series attracted four rookies: the reigning FIA F2 champion, Theo Pourchaire (Itochu Enex Team Impul); Ayumu Iwasa (Team Mugen), who fought for last year’s F2 championship with the Frenchman; the Japanese Formula Lights champion, Iori Kimura (San-Ei Gen with B-Max); the first Japanese female driver in Super Formula, Juju (TGM Grand Prix). Some non-rookies got their fresh start after transferring to different teams or even the other engine manufacturer’s squads.

Despite the cold weather, no fewer than 13,000 motorsport fans visited Suzuka Circuit for the Super Formula season opener even on Saturday, partly due to the event being combined with some top-level national championship motorcycle races.

The qualifying session adopted the two-step knock-out system as usual, and the air/track temperatures were at 8/11 degrees centigrade when the session got underway. Among the 11 drivers allotted to Group A in Q1, Kakunoshin Ohta (Docomo Team Dandelion Racing) set the fastest time. As you may recall, he scored his maiden Super Formula win in last year’s final round. Naoki Yamamoto (Ponos Nakajima Racing) followed in second after returning from an absence in the final races of the 2023 season because of injury.

Looking to the series rookies, Iwasa got through to Q2 with the third fastest time, whereas Pourchaire failed to survive the fight in Q1 as his best time was just one-tenth of a second slower than the last survivor’s.

In Group B, Tomoki Nojiri (Team Mugen) led the Q1 session. He was the only driver to set a lap time below 1’36”, and Tadasuke Makino (Docomo Team Dandelion Racing) came in second. Juju had to settle for tenth and last place in the group, as her best time was 4.8 seconds slower than Nojiri’s.

Still, the 18-year-old rookie was given the 19th grid of the 21-car field for her first-ever Super Formula race. That was because Nojiri in Group B was faster than Ohta in Group A, so the quickest driver among those who dropped out from the battle for Q2 in Group B sat on the 13th grid, and his counterpart in Group A on the 14th. According to the rules, Juju in Group B was allocated a place ahead of the tenth and eleventh drivers in the other group.

Many regarded Nojiri as the pole position favorite. However, Q2 saw a very different result, as Sena Sakaguchi (Vertex Partners Cerumo/Inging) claimed his first pole position in the series. Sakaguchi moved on to Q2 as the third fastest driver of Group B, five-tenths of a second behind Nojiri. Then, the Cerumo/Inging driver tweaked his car setup for Q2 after consulting about it with his race engineer, which seemed to pay off.

Nojiri ended the session in third and said, “I made a little mistake,” later in the press conference. Ohta beat him to secure the second grid on the front row, followed by two Ponos Nakajima Racing drivers, Ren Sato and Yamamoto, in fourth and fifth, respectively. The sixth grid went to Kenta Yamashita (Kondo Racing), who looked good in the pre-season testing.

On the race day, Sunday, the sky above the track was still overcast, but some sunshine broke through the clouds. It felt warmer than the day before in the places in the sun. Yet, the air was still cold, and the air/track temperatures were around 12/22 degrees when the 31-lap race began ten minutes before 3 p.m.

At the start, Nojiri passed Sakaguchi and Ohta on the front row and led the field when they entered Turn 1. Sato and Sakaguchi followed in second and third, while Ohta dropped to seventh due to his less-than-ideal getaway from the grid.

On Lap 2, Kazuto Kotaka (Kondo Racing) and Yuji Kunimoto (Itochu Enex Team Impul) collided at S Curves, and both went off the track. As their cars halted on the spot, the Safety Car was required so early in the race.

Racing resumed from Lap 6. Soon after that, the teammates of Docomo Team Dandelion Racing, Ohta in seventh and Makino in sixth, began to fight over the sixth place. Ohta took the first move. He used the OverTake System at Chicane and overtook Makino from outside the final corner. But Makino hit back promptly and pressed his OTS button on the pit straight, so he, in return, could come abreast and pass Ohta at Turn 1 from the outside.

Thus, Ohta had to give up his short-lived sixth place. Moreover, during the period he wasn’t allowed to use OTS for a while, Nirei Fukuzumi (Kids com Team KCMG) came close to him from behind and overtook the Dandelion Racing driver at Chicane.

When the race leader began his tenth lap and the tire change window opened, Yamamoto and Makino, in fourth and sixth, respectively, were the first to head to the pit lane. Among the leading drivers, Yamashita, Fukuzumi, and Ohta followed their path on the next lap.

The latter three drivers were trying to close the gap with the opponents ahead or swap positions, if possible, by taking a risk in their out lap with cold tires. Kondo Racing’s crew did a great job at the stop. Yamashita managed to get ahead of Yamamoto after struggling to pass him on the track early in the race and even pulled away from the Nakajima Racing driver. Yamashita later said, “I could drive the out lap faster than I imagined.”

Then, the leader made a move. At the end of Lap 13, Nojiri visited the pit box and returned to the track ahead of Yamashita. At first, the gap between them was almost equal to the length of the pit straight, but it instantly shrank to about a second because Yamashita could rely on his sufficiently warmed tires, whereas Nojiri’s rubbers were still a bit cold.

Consequently, they once became almost tail-to-nose at Hair Pin Corner, but Nojiri narrowly fended off Yamashita’s attack by using OTS to stay in the position of effective leader. After that, the top three, Nojiri, Yamashita, and Yamamoto, remained in their positions during the second half of the race, keeping a certain distance from each other for a while.

The late stoppers came into their pits one after another, and the moment Nojiri emerged as the race leader again was approaching. When Iwasa steered to the pit entry on Lap 26 as the last one to make the mandatory stop, Nojiri moved up to the top of the whole field and kept the position for the remaining five laps to the checkered flag safely. For him, it was a great start to the season attained by a perfect drive at the circuit, of which he has a good track record.

Yamashita came in second. Yamamoto challenged him in the closing stage and had a thrilling battle between them on the final lap, both using up their OTS durations in the fight, but Yamashita managed to defend his position. It was his first podium finish in a long time since the second round of 2023. In that regard, Yamamoto’s last visit to the podium dated back to the seventh round of 2022 at Motegi. Considering that this was his first race after injury last year, it was understandable that he showed a big smile while wiping his tears at the interview for podium finishers.

Ohta, Sato, and Fukuzumi finished fourth, fifth, and sixth, respectively. Sakaguchi ended the race in a disappointing seventh despite starting it from the pole position, aiming at his maiden victory. Nobuharu Matsushita (TGM Grand Prix) came in eighth after agreeing with the team to drive only on Tuesday during the race weekend. Finishing in ninth, Iwasa was the top finisher among the Super Formula rookies.