Iwasa finishes 2nd for his 3rd podium finish of the season
Fuji SpeedwayOctober 12 (Sat) - 13 (Sun) — The sixth event of the 2024 SUPER FORMULA series was held at Fuji Speedway (Shizuoka Pref.) in which a double-header round (R-6 & 7) took place for two days in a row.
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). A set of qualifying sessions and the race was carried out on Saturday for R-6 and on Sunday for R-7 featuring the unique 1-event 2-race weekend that has started since 2022.
On 12 (Sat), it’s been fine from the early morning, temperatures went at 19℃ for the ambient and at 25℃ for the road surface, and in a slightly cooler conditions, the 10-minute qualifying session for Q1 A-group was started at 9 a.m., in which #5 Makino marked the best time immediately followed by #65 Sato, #15 Iwasa and #55 Otsu, demonstrating the predominance of the Honda/M-TEC users into Q2. The qualifying session for Q1 B-group was started at 9:15 a.m., and saw #16 Nojiri also marking the best time with #64 Yamamoto following in 3rd and #6 Ohta in 5th, all making way to Q2.
Q2 session started at 9:35 a.m. and lasted for 7-minutes where #6 Ohta took 2nd grid only 0.004-sec. short of the top time; on down, #16 Nojiri 3rd, #15 Iwasa 5th, #65 Sato 6th, #64 Yamamoto 8th, #5 Makino 9th and #55 Otsu 10th for the 6th round race scheduled on Saturday.
At 2:50 p.m., as the autumn sun starting to go down, ambient and road surface temperatures at 23℃ and 32℃ respectively, slightly warmer than in the forenoon, the R-6 race was green-flagged. #15 Iwasa launching from the second row thrusted inside of three cars in front, got ahead of them all at once, and started leading the pack that was headed by #16 Nojiri and then by #65 Sato who, also, jumped up from behind, completing the 1-2-3 formation of Honda/M-TEC runners. Behind the top three Hondas, #36 Sho Tsuboi (VANTELIN TEAM TOM’S) had already caught up to 4th from the far back grid position, and on the contrary, #6 Ohta returned from the opening lap as low as in 6th after choosing a wrong positioning into Turn-1.
The battle for the top between #15 Iwasa and #16 Nojiri was still fierce into Lap-2, but when #15 Iwasa run wide at the Coca-Cola corner, #16 Nojiri shrewdly robbed the top position. #15 Iwasa in the wake of the overshooting allowed #36 Tsuboi who was now running 3rd after passing #65 Sato to close in on, finally surrendered his position to Tsuboi, and thus fallen back to 3rd on Lap-3. The order at the end of Lap-3 shown, from the top down, #16 Nojiri, #36 Tsuboi, #15 Iwasa, #65 Sato and the rest.
The pit window was opened on Lap-10, and the field began buzzing with actions soon as the pit work embargo was lifted. #15 Iwasa and #6 Ohta running 3rd and 5th decided to come in immediately after the minimum 10-lap stint, while #16 Nojiri and #36 Tsuboi stayed on track and kept on fighting each other. The side-by-side battle between the two was obviously changing to Tsuboi’s advantage, where #15 Iwasa now shod with fresh tires catching up from behind.
#16 Nojiri broke away from the battle for the top and head for the pit lane on Lap-21, the midterm point of the race. When he returned the track, Nojiri found himself running behind #15 Iwasa and #6 Ohta, virtually dropped his positions more than he had foreseen. Worse still, #7 Kamui Kobayashi (Kids com Team KCMG) was closing in on Nojiri with a threatening pace.
#36 Tsuboi, the incumbent race leader, made his stop on Lap-23, duly changed tires and returned behind the Honda duo, #15 Iwasa and #6 Ohta. At this point, the virtual race order was #15 Iwasa at the top, then #6 Ohta in 2nd, #36 Tsuboi 3rd, and #16 Nojiri 4th. Nojiri trying very hard to recapture his position made move to #36 Tsuboi, and ironically enough, he overused tires in that fruitless efforts, allowing #7 Kobayashi to swap positions in a way otherwise would have been not so easy.
Among the front runners, #36 Tsuboi’s pace was unmistakably quick. He simply overtook #6 Ohta and then began closing the gap from #15 Iwasa running at the top albeit with battered tires fitted as early as Lap-10. #36 Tsuboi, on the other hand, changed his tires on Lap-23 looking way faster than the counterpart. As the thing turned out, the 2.8 sec. gap on Lap-28 drastically shrunken lap after lap, and on Lap-33, the two cars went side-by-side into the home straight on Lap-33, and then #15 Iwasa finally surrendered at the 100R corner to Tsuboi dropped down to 2nd.
#15 Iwasa went on to finish the race maintaining his position, and achieved his third 2nd finish in this season since R-3. Two other high-point rankers at Honda camp, #5 Makino and #16 Nojiri, had to settle 4th and 6th respectively for this time. #16 Nojiri kept the top ranking with a total of 64-points, followed by #36 Tsuboi just 0.5-points behind in 2nd and by #5 Makino with 61-points in 3rd overall. With R-7 waiting just next day, the title race situation became extremely tense all of a sudden.
The 6th round was not perfect for me but I could finish in 2nd thanks to the good strategy that covered other drawbacks. The decision to make the minimum stint before tire change, for one, which was differ from the two cars running in front of me at that time. My top speed at the qualifying was not fast enough, so we took the approach to improve it before the race. The result was, even if the top speed was bettered, I had some negative effects instead, and in the total performance wise, I felt it’s almost break-even. We’ll have to bring the balance sheet into the black as quickly as possible. It’s essential to win races in order to be the series champion, and yet, we’ve had them go potentially half-measured recently, if I’m not mistaken. Nevertheless, we could make full use of the performance at hand like today, even if it’s not sufficient, that’s the only way to pursuit the victory we deserve.
The 6th round was not perfect for me but I could finish in 2nd thanks to the good strategy that covered other drawbacks. The decision to make the minimum stint before tire change, for one, which was differ from the two cars running in front of me at that time. My top speed at the qualifying was not fast enough, so we took the approach to improve it before the race. The result was, even if the top speed was bettered, I had some negative effects instead, and in the total performance wise, I felt it’s almost break-even. We’ll have to bring the balance sheet into the black as quickly as possible. It’s essential to win races in order to be the series champion, and yet, we’ve had them go potentially half-measured recently, if I’m not mistaken. Nevertheless, we could make full use of the performance at hand like today, even if it’s not sufficient, that’s the only way to pursuit the victory we deserve.
