The Qualifying Session

In the afternoon on August 9 (Sat), the official qualifying sessions took place under a clear sky, and Iwasa took his first pole position of the season. The grid order of other Honda/M-TEC users were as follows: #65 Igor Omura Fraga (PONOS NAKAJIMA RACING) 6th, #5 Tadasuke Makino (DOCOMO TEAM DANDELION RACING) 7th, #64 Ren Sato (PONOS NAKAJIMA RACING) 9th. #6 Kakunoshin Ohta (DOCOMO TEAM DANDELION RACING) who was placed 2nd overall in the points ranking sank in the Q1 session as low as 16th due to a lack of grip. #50 Syun Koide (San-Ei Gen with B-Max) who had marked the top time in the morning free practice session and thus was a favourite for the race ended up at the back of the grid after some mechanical trouble in the middle of the time attack.

The Race

The weather on the race day, August 10 (Sun), took a sudden turn and it started raining early in the morning. As the “Wet Race” was declared by the officials, all the runners chose rain tyres (with no mandatary pit stop) and the race was started with the Safety Car (SC) leading the pack. The SC came in on Lap-6 and the real action started. Iwasa managed to go first into Turn-1 with #37 Sacha Fenestraz (Toyota) following immediately behind him. Fenestraz then tried to pass Iwasa from the outside by running side-by-side into Turn-1, however, Iwasa defended his inside line and retained the lead. Fenestraz did not cease his pursuit even after Lap-2 and pounced on Iwasa by using Overtake System (OTS), but still Iwasa just had enough to stay ahead.

On Lap-9, Sato, who started from 9th on the grid, lost rear grip and slid out at Turn-2 bringing the SC back onto the track. At this point of the race, Iwasa was running at the top, Omura Fraga 6th, Makino 8th and Nojiri 10th.

As the race was restarted on Lap-15, Iwasa made an excellent dash and easily pulled away from Fenestraz without using OTS. Behind the top group, Omura Fraga was running 6th and caught by #8 Nirei Fukuzumi (Toyota) to outrun him to snatch 5th place, only to give it back later on Lap-21 to Fukuzumi who made fierce counterattack. Almost at the same time, in the midfield #12 Atsushi Miyake (ThreeBond Racing) in 13th hit #14 Kazuya Oshima (Toyota). Miyake kept on going with some damage on his front wing, but he soon crashed into the tyre barrier after his front wheel got tangled with the loose crash damage parts. The race was again led by the SC in order to clear the aftermath of Miyake’s shunt.

When the SC withdrew on Lap-28, Fenestraz again mounted an assault on Iwasa who again was able to doggedly defend each time. A little after Lap-30, the then-drizzling rain got slightly harder, and Iwasa steadily managed tyre wear to continue his flawless defence against Fenestraz.

The lengthy yellow flag period upon deploying the SC twice made the race come to end at the designated 75-minute time limit rather than the 51-lap maximum distance. The checkered flag was waved on Lap-48, and Iwasa achieved his maiden victory in the Super Formula series. Omura Fraga finished 6th, Ohta finished 8th all the way from 16th on the grid, and Makino in 10th, each with their share of series points. At the end of the day, Iwasa jumped to 2nd overall in the points ranking with a total of 90-points, 5-points behind the point leader, Tsuboi, and Ohta sits in 3rd with a total of 87-points.