Kakunoshin Ohta won the opening race of the new Super Formula season at Motegi in wet conditions, taking advantage of a safety car restart to pass defending champion Ayumu Iwasa.
Heavy rain at the Tochigi Prefecture track meant the race was red-flagged after just three laps of the scheduled 37 as the drivers struggled with both visibility in the spray and aquaplaning.
Proceedings were delayed by more than an hour, and even when the race finally resumed with 50 minutes left on the clock, the field circulated behind the safety car before the pack was finally unleashed on lap 16, with Iwasa maintaining the advantage ahead of Ohta.
Moments later the safety car was deployed again as both Kamui Kobayashi and Ukyo Sasahara hit trouble – the two made contact at Turn 5, leaving Kobayashi’s TGM Grand Prix machine stranded and Sasahara’s Kondo Racing car with terminal damage.
The race went green once again on lap 20, and Dandelion Racing driver Ohta immediately pounced on Iwasa at Turn 1 to grab a lead that he wouldn’t relinquish.
Ohta’s win was all but secured when the safety car was called again almost immediately as Juju Noda beached her car in the gravel at Turn 5.
With time expiring after 23 laps, Ohta took victory ahead of Team Mugen’s Iwasa, with only half points being awarded as the race did not reach 75% distance.
It marks Dandelion’s fourth consecutive win at Motegi and Ohta’s seventh in the series, putting him in the early championship lead by 1.5 points.
Ren Sato converted his third-place start to the same position at the finish ahead of Nakajima Racing team-mate Igor Fraga, who passed Yuto Nomura on the first restart.
B-Max Racing rookie Nomura struggled to get up to speed and lost further positions to both Syun Koide, who went on to score ThreeBond Racing’s best-ever Super Formula finish in fifth, and the leading Toyota-powered car of Sacha Fenestraz (TOM’S).
Completing the scorers were Tomoki Nojiri (Mugen) in his 100th Super Formula start, Sho Tsuboi (TOM’S) and Formula 2 graduate Roman Stanek, who stunned the paddock by making it into Q2 and qualifying ninth for Buzz MK Racing on his series debut.
Stanek’s fellow F2 convert Luke Browning finished his first Super Formula race 14th in the surviving Kondo car, but was involved in a scary incident with fellow Briton Zak O’Sullivan on the back straight approaching the downhill Turn 11 right-hander.
Unsighted in the thick spray, Browning had to take avoiding action to miss the Cerumo/Inging car of Sena Sakaguchi in the braking zone, and clipped the front-left corner of O’Sullivan’s Team Impul machine in the process.
That contact was enough to put O’Sullivan out of the race, but Williams F1 reserve Browning was able to continue seemingly without damage after a spin.
Of the other newcomers, Charlie Wurz was 16th for Team Goh and Rikuto Kobayashi was 19th in his TGM machine, ahead of Nirei Fukuzumi (Rookie Racing), who ended up last of the runners in 20th after being excluded from qualifying for an underweight car.
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– The Autosport.com Team
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