Tsuboi leads Nojiri to win Super Formula Fuji race

Sho Tsuboi took the lead of the Super Formula championship standings with his second victory of the season in Saturday’s opening race at Fuji. 

Tom’s driver Tsuboi started second after narrowly missing out on pole position to Tomoki Nojiri, but passed his rival on the second lap of the 36-lap race a d went on to gap the field. 

Nojiri came in for his mandatory pit stop on lap 11, and temporarily retook the lead when Tsuboi pitted from the lead on lap 23. But, with fresher tyres, there was nothing the Team Mugen driver could do to keep Tsuboi at bay. 

The reigning champion crossed the line 6.7 seconds clear of Nojiri for his seventh career win and his fourth in a row at the Toyota-owned Fuji track, where he is set to drive a Haas Formula 1 car next month. 

Behind Nojiri, Ayumu Iwasa made it two Mugen cars on the podium in third place after passing the KCMG machine of Nirei Fukuzumi with five laps to go. 

Having pitted on lap 21, Iwasa made good use of his tyre advantage on Nojiri to close the gap in the fight for second, but fell half a second short of his team-mate. 

Fukuzumi held on for fourth, his best result of a troubled season, ahead of Tadasuke Makino, who qualified sixth and could only manage fifth in the best of the Dandelion Racing cars. 

Makino slipped to ninth following a poor start and pitted on lap 10, which allowed him to temporarily undercut several of his rivals. However, fifth was not enough to prevent Tsuboi from moving into the lead of the drivers’ standings by two points. 

Faring even worse was Makino’s Dandelion team-mate Kakunoshin Ohta, who was relegated to 12th on the grid when he lost his best lap in qualifying due to a track limits violation. 

Ohta was unable to make significant progress on the opening lap, only climbing to 10th by the end of the second tour, and leaving his pit stop until lap 23 didn’t pay dividends as he became stuck behind Kamui Kobayashi for several laps. 

The battle between Ohta and Kobayashi reached boiling point after both drivers had pitted, as Kobayashi forced his way by the Dandelion driver at Turn 10, only for Ohta to return the favour at the final corner, make contact with Kobayashi and deal the KCMG driver a right-rear puncture. 

Kobayashi was forced to pit a second time, dropping to 22nd and last in the process, but he and Ohta both got away with black-and-white flags. 

Ohta now finds himself 11 points behind Tsuboi in the standings with six races to go, including another encounter at Fuji on Sunday. 

Kazuya Oshima matched his best finish of the season for Rookie Racing in sixth on his 100th start, ahead of Inging pair Sena Sakaguchi and Toshiki Oyu. 

Igor Fraga (Nakajima Racing) held off Ohta for ninth in an otherwise disappointing race for the international contingent, with Sacha Fenestraz (TOM’S) finishing 13th, Zak O’Sullivan (Kondo Racing) 14th and Oliver Rasmussen (Team Impul) 16th.