Makino takes his second win of the season. Nojiri finishes in third place
Mobility Resort MotegiAugust 24 (Sat) - 25 (Sun) —— The fifth round of the 2024 SUPER FORMULA series was held at Mobility Resort Motegi (Tochigi Pref.)
A total of 10 drivers of 6 teams using Honda/M-TEC engine participated in the race as per follows: Tadasuke Makino #5, Kakunoshin Ohta #6 (DOCOMO TEAM DANDELION RACING), Atsushi Miyake #12 (ThreeBond Racing), Ayumu Iwasa #15, Tomoki Nojiri #16 (TEAM MUGEN), Iori Kimura #50 (San-Ei Gen with B-Max), Juju #53, Hiroki Otsu #55 (TGM Grand Prix), Naoki Yamamoto #64, Ren Sato #65 (PONOS NAKAJIMA RACING).
On 24 (Sat), the qualifying morning began with thin clouds covering the sky and the local weather forecast suggested rainfall in the afternoon when qualifying sessions were to take place. Fortunately, there was no sudden downpour as was feared, and both free-practice and qualifying sessions scheduled in the afternoon were carried out under the clear sky as well as on the dry condition.
Q1 session for A-group was started at 2:00 p.m.; #6 Ohta marked top time and #65 Sato 5th time while in Q1 for B-group, #5 Makino too marked top time followed by #16 Nojiri in 2nd and #64 Yamamoto 4th, a total of five Honda/M-TEC engine users made way to Q2 session.
The Q2 session fought by a total of 12 cars saw #6 Ohta coming in 2nd, #16 Nojiri 4th, #5 Makino 5th, #64 Yamamoto 6th and #65 Sato 9th, the five Honda-powered runners will start the race next day from the upper half of the grids.
After the qualifying session, a heavy thunderstorm washed out the circuit of Mobility Resort Motegi, however, the rain had stopped during the night and it was perfectly fine on 25 (Sun) with the temperature both of the ambient and track surface hiking up from early hours. As the weather forecast told a possible thunderstorm again in the late afternoon, the race was started under the hardly predictable condition.
Start signal was given at 2:40 p.m.: while #3 Kenta Yamashita (KONDO RACING) and #6 Ohta launching from the front row maintained each position, #5 Makino executing a superb dash from 5th grid jumped up to 3rd and set for the further pursuit for higher position. The race pace of both #6 Ohta and #5 Makino was clearly better than that of #3 Yamashita’s, and the gap from the race leader visibly shrunk lap after lap.
After Lap-10 when the tire change embargo was lifted, the race began moving all of a sudden. #6 Ohta running second got the start of pit-stop and #39 Toshiki Oyu (VERTEX PARTNERS CERUMO･INGING) immediately followed suit. #3 Yamashita and #5 Makino, on the contrary, preferred to stay put, and so did #16 Nojiri coming up to the apparent 3rd.
#6 Ohta who had dropped some positions due to the pit stop began pushing very hard as soon as he returned to the race. It was known later that #6 Ohta had been scheming to get ahead of #3 Yamashita while he was changing his tires. The household strategy so-called Under-cut worked perfectly fine for #6 Ohta who eventually ran through the home straight before #3 Yamashita joining the race course and took over the virtual top position. On top of it, #5 Makino who had made his stop on Lap-22 also succeeded with under-cut and overtook #3 Yamashita making up the 1-2 formation of DOCOMO TEAM DANDELION RACING. In the meantime, #16 Nojiri who had stopped on Lap-23 and returned in 5th was getting better in the pace, and robbed #39 Oyu of his 4th place on Lap-29.
The 1-2 formation of the DANDELION team kept on pulling away from the pack and the duel between the two looked eminent now. #5 Makino’s pace was slightly better than that of #6 Ohta simply because Makino had stopped later and thus run on fresher tires. When the race came to the final phase, the two-car battle was fought in fierce rivalry, and with 3-laps to go, the tale-to-nose haggling with only 0.532 sec. gap looked nail-bitingly close to a catastrophic end. As a matter of fact, #6 Ohta did spin abruptly at the 90-degree corner just before the final lap. A throttle linkage failure, announced later from the team was it. #5 Makino escaped the shunt by a hairsbreadth and broke out into the leading slot.
#6 Ohta tried getting back in the race only to retire at the spot, and the checkered flag was waved at the end of the 37-lap race. #5 Makino achieved his second win in this season and #16 Nojiri finished 3rd on the podium, on down, #64 Yamamoto 4th, #15 Iwasa 7th and #65 Sato 10th, adding up each share of series points.
As the result, #16 Nojiri added 11-points and kept on leading the series ranking with a total of 58-points. #5 Makino adding 20-points and climbed up to 2nd with 53-points in total. The next meeting will be carried out on the “2-race in 1-event” format at Fuji Speedway where the round 6 and 7 will be held each on October 12 (Sat) and 13 (Sun).
Today’s race was not mine but Kakunoshin’s. I made a move with three laps to go and couldn’t make it. At that moment, I convinced myself that I was lost. Kakunoshin was running ahead of me, therefore he had priority over the pit timing. If he came in for fresh tires after the minimum stint, I would have no other choice but to stretch out my stint as long as possible. Yamashita also seemed to have chosen late-stop strategy, so I was planning to under-cut him. That’s why I made my stop with 15-laps to go which was a bit earlier than I initially planned it to be. Means that I had to run more laps, and therefore, take a big risk of tire wear towards the final phase of the race. Anyway, I’d done all I could do, and finally got ahead of Yamashita as I wished in the first place. Honestly saying, this is a bitter-sweet victory for me. I really hope I’d do a good race with Kakunoshin next time again.
Today’s race was not mine but Kakunoshin’s. I made a move with three laps to go and couldn’t make it. At that moment, I convinced myself that I was lost. Kakunoshin was running ahead of me, therefore he had priority over the pit timing. If he came in for fresh tires after the minimum stint, I would have no other choice but to stretch out my stint as long as possible. Yamashita also seemed to have chosen late-stop strategy, so I was planning to under-cut him. That’s why I made my stop with 15-laps to go which was a bit earlier than I initially planned it to be. Means that I had to run more laps, and therefore, take a big risk of tire wear towards the final phase of the race. Anyway, I’d done all I could do, and finally got ahead of Yamashita as I wished in the first place. Honestly saying, this is a bitter-sweet victory for me. I really hope I’d do a good race with Kakunoshin next time again.
It was a tough race. I was pushing harder than I did in the races I won before this. Although I could eventually maintain the leading position on the point table, I told the team that I’ve often been out-performed by Makino these days. I actually have a strong sense of crisis that goes far beyond the title chance or whatever, unless we’d make the edge of ours, if any, sharpened till the next race at Fuji. One good thing in this week where I was way off my form soon as I started driving is that I could give some pressure on my rivals by putting up the least result and brought some points in our bag. The Motegi circuit is near to my hometown and I felt a huge cheering crowd was backing me during the race. Thank you very much!
It was a tough race. I was pushing harder than I did in the races I won before this. Although I could eventually maintain the leading position on the point table, I told the team that I’ve often been out-performed by Makino these days. I actually have a strong sense of crisis that goes far beyond the title chance or whatever, unless we’d make the edge of ours, if any, sharpened till the next race at Fuji. One good thing in this week where I was way off my form soon as I started driving is that I could give some pressure on my rivals by putting up the least result and brought some points in our bag. The Motegi circuit is near to my hometown and I felt a huge cheering crowd was backing me during the race. Thank you very much!
