Photo: Super Formula Lights

Super Formula Lights has adjusted its 2021 calendar, moving its season finale from Okayama to Twin Ring Motegi.

The sixth and final round of the season was scheduled to take place on October 1-3, but it’s now been postponed by two weeks and moved to Motegi.

The former IndyCar venue is already hosting round six of the championship on August 27-29, meaning six of the season’s 18 races will now be taking place there.

Super Formula, which SF Lights supports, runs for one round longer and after swapping its Okayama date for a second Motegi visit will conclude its season at Suzuka on October 29-31.

There has been a change to the grid for the second SF race at Suzuka later this month, with Nobuharu Matsushita joining the grid with B-MAX Racing.

Over winter it had looked like Matsushita would join the team, but after signing with Nissan in Super GT there was a veto from B-MAX’s engine supplier Honda over him racing for the team in SF and inexperienced American teenager Yves Baltas was signed instead.

While Baltas still awaits the visa required to enter Japan to race B-MAX’s #50 car, a surprise change of heart from Honda has enabled the team to make its first appearance of the year with Matsushita in its #51 car instead.

The 27-year-old is expected to remain in the seat for the five races after Suzuka too, and build on the part-season he had with the team in 2020 which culminated in a first series podium.

Former Honda junior and seven-time GP2/Formula 2 race-winner Matsushita had previously raced in SF in 2018 for Dandelion Racing, when he had claimed a best finish of fourth.

The post Super Formula Lights switches season finale to Twin Ring Motegi appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Super Formula Lights

Reigning champion Ritomo Miyata set the pace in Super Formula Lights’ pre-season test at Suzuka this week.

The Super Formula-bound TOM’S driver contested the second of two sessions held on Wednesday, taking over the car Japanese Formula 4 driver Seita Nonaka had piloted in the morning.

His 1m49.807s lap put him over half a second clear of fellow SF driver Nobuharu Matsushita, whose new relationship with Nissan in Japan’s premier sportscar series Super GT has complicated his chances of landing a Honda-powered SF seat with B-MAX Racing.

Matsushita drove for the team on Wednesday morning, and jumping into a sister B-Max Engineering car for the afternoon.

Reigning Super GT300 champion Kiyoto Fujinami took over the B-MAX Racing car in the afternoon and was third fastest, the only other driver within a second of series veteran Miyata.

Japanese F4 champions Ren Sato (Toda Racing) and Hibiki Taira (TOM’S) improved on their morning laps to rise up to fourth and fifth on the combined timesheet in the afternoon, although Sato did crash twice during the test.

While Toda Racing is still a team to place Honda juniors such as Sato, at Suzuka it used a Spiess-built engine rather than the self-developed Toda unit is has run with since 2013. It is believed that it will now adopt German power for the season ahead.

Sixth fastest overall was Teppei Natori, a Euroformula race-winner who has lost his Honda backing for 2021. He joined B-MAX for the sole test session on Thursday and topped the times with a lap 1.239s slower than Miyata’s Wednesday marker.

He’s already landed a Super GT3000 seat, but is seeking sponsorship to stay in SF Lights after racing in the series in 2020.

Below Natori were two drivers who were at the top on Wednesday morning but then failed to improve, with new TOM’S signing Giuliano Alesi in seventh and RS Fine’s Shunsuke Kohno in eighth after the latter crashed in the second session.

After starting the SF Lights test with the fastest lap, Alesi’s focus then switched to preparing for his first ever run in a SF car in the hours before Thursday’s SF Lights session as TOM’s gave him a late call-up to replace the absent Kazuki Nakajima.

Alesi ended day one of SF’s pre-season test as 15th fastest of 18 drivers, with Red Bull-backed Ukyo Sasahara topping the times as a stand-in for the ill Tadasuke Makino at Dandelion Racing.

Test results

The post Super Formula drivers star in SF Lights’ pre-season Suzuka test appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Super Formula

Junior single-seater champions Ritomo Miyata and Sena Sakaguchi will move up to Super Formula this year, as well as racing in Super GT using Toyota power.

Long-time Toyota junior dominated Super Formula Lights last year with TOM’S, and made two starring appearances in SF with the team as a substitute for the absent 2019 champion Nick Cassidy.

The 21-year-old now takes Cassidy’s place permanently following the Kiwi’s switch to Formula E with Virgin Racing, and also keeps his Super GT seat in a Toyota GR Supra alongside 2016 SF champion Yuji Kuminoto at WedsSport Bandoh.

Cassidy’s departure from Japan means the TOM’S line-up in Super GT has also been revised, with Sacha Fenestraz moving in alongside Ryo Hirakawa in the team’s #37 car, and SF race-winner Sho Tsuboi slotting in to replace Fenestraz in the #36.

Sakaguchi finished second to Miyata in SF Lights in 2020 and had an unbeaten run to the inaugural Formula Regional Japanese Championship title.

The former Honda junior was also supposed to debut in SF last year alongside Fenestraz at the Toyota-powered Kondo Racing, but crashed on the warm-up lap at Okayama before he could race.

The 21-year-old has now been selected to drive for INGING in SF, becoming team-mate to Tsuboi after the retirement of two-time champion Hiroaki Ishiura.

Sakaguchi’s sportscar commitments will be in Super GT’s secondary GT300 class, where he will race a Lexus RC F GT3 for the second season in a row.

Meanwhile Formula 2 race-winner Nobuharu Matsushita, who returned to Japanese racing late in 2020, will represent Nissan at Team Impul in the top GT500 class.

The post Miyata and Sakaguchi earn Super Formula and Super GT seats for 2021 appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Super Formula

Formula Scout brought in full coverage of Super Formula this year as more junior single-seater graduates used the series as a way to F1. But it was series icon Naoki Yamamoto that finished first again – here’s how

The 2019 Super Formula season is probably remembered for three things, and in this order. 1) Red Bull junior Dan Ticktum’s three-race spell before he was sacked, 2) Nick Cassidy edging out Naoki Yamamoto to become champion after a year-long rivalry, and 3) Nakajima Racing become a force at the front once more after years of underachieving.

This year – the second with the halo-shod Dallara SF19 car – was expected to be similar, although the hopes were that Juri Vips would be using his time in Japan to get a Red Bull F1 seat rather than an F1 sacking, and after 2019’s star rookie Alex Palou left for IndyCar it would be Tadasuke Makino winning for the team of series legend and ex-F1 star Satoru Nakajima.

The competitive order would swing on the strengths of the Honda and Toyota powertrains too. Which was better at high-end performance, which one had better fuel consumption figures, and which one was less likely to go bang in a title run-in.

As the coronavirus pandemic swept across the globe, the pre-season predictions flew out of the window. Races were going to be shortened considerably, run without compulsory pitstops so the number of people in pitlane could be reduced – an effort to reduce the spread of COVID-19 – and each round would fit qualifying and the race in on the same day, a la Formula E.

This reduced the reliance on fuel and tyre management, one of the F1-rivalling features of the series, but also arguably meant that qualifying and the races were going to be faster than ever. Especially so now that the teams understood the car.

Travel restrictions arising from the pandemic changed the look of the grid too before the first race, with Vips absent (and ultimately never even competing this year despite making it to Japan) as well as Red Bull reserve driver Sergio Sette Camara.

Two of the rookies hotly tipped for success, and fresh out of Formula 3 and Formula 2 respectively, were now gone, and their places were taken by two even less experienced drivers in Asian F3’s Ukyo Sasahara and Euroformula’s Teppei Natori.

With the tricky strategic elements of the championship now gone, it should have made the step up for rookies easier than usual. But it then put the onus on qualifying, and getting the most out of Yokohama’s soft compound tyre (after the medium compound was dropped for this year) was not something that came naturally to everyone.

What’s more, it pushed the Honda versus Toyota battle more onto which engine was better on full power in qualifying. Was single-lap pace going to primarily dictate the title picture?

Round one at Twin Ring Motegi suggested as such, with Toyota dominating qualifying and Team Impul’s Ryo Hirakawa winning from pole. There was barely any overtaking behind, with everyone of course on the same strategy besides the very inexperienced – like Sasahara – who had to pit because they were yet to understand how to make the tyres last a whole race.

The drivers had warned the race would be a bore, and after they were proven right the series made some tweaks to the rules that brought back pitstops and more importantly resulted in the remaining six races contributing to a thrilling season.

It was the Motegi weekend that was Yamamoto’s only dud one from a personal standpoint, as he qualified 14th and finished a lowly 13th in the searing 34°C heat a weekend where his Honda power had no hope of fighting up front. His race result was down to a rare but amateur error when trying to pass KCMG’s Kamui Kobayashi, as he ended up breaking his own front wing and giving Kobayashi a puncture.

But with two dropped scores being added into the rules as a response to many drivers facing the prospect of missing two races, it wasn’t going to impact Yamamoto’s title campaign. At every other circuit he was close to his usual brilliant best.

The breakout star of the first half of the season, while the Toyota-powered teams had a noticeable edge, was Hirakawa. After three races he had a staggering 15-point lead, following up his Motegi win with another pole at Okayama and a fourth place finish, then a straight run to second at Sportsland SUGO after being leapfrogged by late-stopper Cassidy.

It was Cassidy’s uncanny ability to make the tyres last the race duration, and getting more pace out of them beyond the point most drivers would be losing time by choosing not to pit, that kept him in title contention when his TOM’S team didn’t have the pace to fight for poles and therefore have a straightforward route to wins.

The only race in which he couldn’t play that card was obviously Motegi, but he used it as often as he could.

He pitted from the lead with two laps to go at Okayama, under the safety car in the first half of the Sugo race while already in the podium positions after qualifying fourth, and with four laps to go at Autopolis. Then in the first Suzuka race he and half of the field pitted in response to leader Yamamoto coming to a stop on track with engine issues, under the expectation that the safety car would come out at any moment. Suzuka’s second race was his to win before an engine failure, which required an older unit to go in for the Fuji Speedway finale. Once again, he took his tyres as long as possible there too.

This time his pitstop came after other title rival Tomoki Nojiri came to a stop on track with a wheel-related problem, and Cassidy sacrificed a half-minute lead to pit before a potential safety car wiped out that advantage anyway. He returned to track between Yamamoto and Hirakawa, and after his new set of tyres warmed up – on a track barely at 10°C surface temperature – he set off in pursuit of Yamamoto.

Once he caught up they engaged in a thrilling and potentially title-deciding battle – one they probably wouldn’t be allowed to get away with if they were racing in Europe such was it closeness and ferocity – and after clearing his rival Cassidy went pursuing the very close top three.

Had the race run one or two laps longer, Cassidy could very well have passed all three to win the race and the title. He didn’t manage it, but once again reminded the world of his brilliance and how entertaining Super Formula can be in the process.

Yamamoto held off Hirakawa to finish fifth, and claim his third title as a result. He is now the fourth driver to reach that milestone, after six-time champion and Impul boss Kazuyoshi Hoshino, five-time champion Nakajima and four-time champion Satoshi Motoyama, who was B-MAX’s team boss this year and also cameoed in Super Formula Lights.

The drivers contending for victory just two seconds up the road from Cassidy at Fuji were INGING’s Sho Tsuboi and Nakajima’s Toshiki Oyu.

Both drivers had a habit this year of finishing at the back or not at all, but the SF Lights graduates showed that the future of the championship is in safe hands with their breakthrough wins.

Tsuboi, who dominated the 2018 SF Lights season, usually struggled in qualifying – a carryover from his rookie season last year. When he did start near the front he had impressive race management skills though, and won at Autopolis from eighth on the grid before benefitting from Nojiri’s woes to add a second success at Fuji – the only driver to win twice this season.

Oyu was practically the opposite, with stunning single-lap speed that had him on average as the third best qualifier (behind only Yamamoto and TOM’S driver Kazuki Nakajima), but an inability to put things together in races. The rookie frequently crashed at first, but under the gaze of Takuma Sato at Suzuka – where he coaches at the racing school presided over by the two-time Indianapolis 500 winner – he went from zero to hero by winning race two after Cassidy’s engine failure.

The confidence boost from that drive, which has gone some way to ensuring Honda gives him a second season in the series, continued on to Fuji and he fought Tsuboi wheel-to-wheel for the win before settling for second. As a result he leapt up to sixth in the points, while Tsuboi came third ahead of Cassidy courtesy of the 2020 dropped scores rule.

Oyu’s team-mate Makino missed Fuji due to meningitis and came 12th in the points, one place up on Kondo Racing’s Sacha Fenestraz. The reigning SF Lights champion started his rookie season in incredible style by qualifying second and finishing third, but he was then involved in several crashes – at least one which Oyu was firmly to blame for – and he only completed five laps in the next three races. He was out after one lap again at Suzuka, but when he could finish he always scored and with impressive pace despite Kondo’s slide down the order. Fenestraz should probably have been top rookie.

Nobuharu Matsushita’s mid-season switch to SF boosted his confidence after the abrupt end to his F2 career, and he made the podium for the first time at Fuji after spending the whole race in what ended up being the lead trio. Old F2 rival Sette Camara eventually made his debut with B-MAX at Sugo and took pole after crashing in free practice. He was on for at least a podium in the race before also crashing straight after his pitstop, an embarrassing error more common than you think in Super Formula as tyre warmers were banned until the end of this season when temperatures nearly dropped to freezing.

Perhaps the most impressive young driver though was Ritomo Miyata. He entered two races as a substitute for Nakajima at TOM’S, and qualified second for the first of those at Okayama. A slow start and Oyu’s race-ending incident with Fenestraz occurring in front of him on the opening lap consigned him to a midfield finish, but ninth place was still impressive given he was also racing in SF Lights that weekend. He qualified seventh and finished eighth on his Autopolis return.

Miyata’s third season in SF Lights resulted in the title as expected, winning 10 of the 14 races. Most of the time he was just unbeatable in racing conditions, although B-MAX’s Sena Sakaguchi could match him in qualifying in the new Dallara 320, and the only blot on his record was an unforced error at Suzuka where he spun away a win and a 100% run of podiums.

There was little overtaking with the new F3-level car, and Miyata’s TOM’S team-mate Kazuto Kotaka picking up third in the points and a win at the Fuji season finale was an example of that as he simply drove around in front of his rivals knowing the dirty air he was creating was doing the defensive job for him.

Natori’s planned SF debut was called off by dehydration worries, and his time with Toda Racing in SF Lights wasn’t great either besides one pole and a couple of podiums. The international flavour of the grid was reduced to just Albirex Racing’s Lucca Allen, the reigning Formula 4 South East Asia champion, as travel restrictions prevented others from making the trip.

Formula Scout’s Top 5 Super Formula drivers

Key Percentage of team’s points scored (TP), Average qualifying position (QA), Average points per race (AP)

5. Kenta Yamashita JAPAN Kondo Racing
7th in standings, 34 points (1 podium) – TP 65%, QA 11.8, AP 5.7

Never spectacular, but probably the most mistake-free driver in the field in his fourth season at this level. Yamashita started the season on a high with a second place, and only made the top five once after that but in wake of Toyota’s early-season advantage disappearing and Kondo sliding down the competitive order. Along with Cassidy and Nojiri he was the only driver to score in six of the seven races, and that came after missing Okayama – when Kondo was still near the top – due to being in quarantine after the Le Mans 24 Hours.

4. Tomoki Nojiri JAPAN Team Mugen
5th in standings, 47 points (1 win, 2 poles, 1 podium) – TP 91%, QA 7.3, AP 6.1

Mugen hasn’t operationally been the tightest team since the Dallara SF19’s introduction, and team boss Shinji Nakano will admit that. Despite those issues, including slow pitstops once they were reintroduced, Nojiri put in not only his best individual race performances to date but also his most complete season. A warm-up issue at Suzuka led to him stalling on the formation lap and requiring him to start at the back rather than from second place, while the pitstop and then a secondary wheel problem undid his Fuji victory hopes from pole. He did win Autopolis from the front, but the points lost through no fault of his own prevented title success.

3. Ryo Hirakawa JAPAN Team Impul
2nd in standings, 60 points (1 win, 2 poles, 2 podiums) – TP 78%, QA 9.3, AP 7.4

At first, it looked like Hirakawa would romp to the title in a way rarely seen in SF. In reality, he was dealt another gut-wrenching title loss after finishing second in Japan’s Super GT sportscar series for the last three seasons – most often to none other than Yamamoto. The undoing of his season wasn’t really Hirakawa’s fault though, with technical issues putting him at the back of the grid more than once. He wasn’t able to turn being on the back foot into a solid haul of points like his main rivals could, and as a result his impressive end of season wasn’t enough to beat Yamashita.

2. Nick Cassidy NEW ZEALAND TOM’S
4th in standings, 50 points (1 win, 1 pole, 2 fastest laps, 2 podiums) – TP 64%, QA 9.3, AP 7.7

At first it didn’t look like Cassidy would race this year, with his attention already being piqued by challenges beyond Japan, but the lengthy lockdown period gave him time to focus on defending his title. His race pace and racecraft was simply sublime, putting in drives that no one else looked capable of other than Yamamoto, and his mastery of the soft compound tyre also went beyond expectations. He did take one pole, but otherwise didn’t have the key to unlocking the qualifying pace in his TOM’S-run car much of the time and that’s what cost him the title.

1. Naoki Yamamoto JAPAN Dandelion Racing
1st in standings, 62 points (1 win, 1 pole, 2 fastest laps, 3 podiums) – TP 67%, QA 6.0, AP 8.1

There are a lot of people who would love to see what Yamamoto would be capable of in F1, and after a season like this one it’s easy to see why. His understanding of what the tyres wanted from the driver straight out of the box was key to his qualifying form – the best of anyone’s besides the cameoing Sette Camara and Miyata – and he had more strategic manoeuvrability than his rivals courtesy of his ability of saving the best of his tyres until he had fresh air in front of him in races. His respectful yet intense rivalry with Cassidy, and Hirakawa, continued with some thrilling wheel-to-wheel battles that were always clean and usually involved Yamamoto coming out on top.

Further reading
How “worried” Nakajima had his faith in Oyu rewarded
10 outstanding Japanese drivers who never reached F1
What is Super Formula?

The post The factors behind Yamamoto’s third Super Formula title appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Super Formula

Nirei Fukuzumi topped the final day of Super Formula’s post-season rookie test at Fuji Speedway, as changes to the 2021 calendar were announced.

The final two rounds of next season, at Okayama and Suzuka, were scheduled to take place on September 25/26 and November 13/14 respectively.

Okayama has now been pushed back a week to October 2/3, while the Suzuka season finale comes forward to October 30/31.

Moving Okayama frees drivers to contest both the World Endurance Championship’s Fuji 6 Hours race and the penultimate SF round, while an earlier finish to the season now means it will end before Super GT where many SF drivers also race.

Fukuzumi was fastest in both of the Wednesday test sessions at Fuji in the car Naoki Yamamoto drove to the title for Dandelion Racing, and it was his morning session best that stood as the fastest lap of the day.

Nakajima Racing’s Toshiki Oyu was second fastest in the afternoon, 0.385 seconds back, while Yamamoto took over the second of the Nakajima team’s cars and was a further 0.002s off with the lap he set to go second to Fukuzumi in the morning.

Former Formula 2 driver Nobuharu Matsushita returned to his B-MAX Racing with Motopark car and was fourth fastest, while the best of the drivers with two races or less of SF experience was INGING’s Sena Sakaguchi in sixth.

The 2020 Super Formula Lights runner-up and inaugural Formula Regional Japanese champion was 0.696s off the pace.

SF Lights champion Ritomo Miyata was eighth for TOM’S, after racing for the team in SF on two occasions this year, and 2017 BRDC British Formula 3 champion Enaam Ahmed (B-MAX) and SF Lights regular Shunsuke Kohno (ROOKIE Racing) propped up the timesheet.

Test results

The post Fukuzumi ends Super Formula Fuji test on top as 2021 calendar revised appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Honda Racing

Nobuharu Matsushita will remain at B-MAX Racing with Motopark for the remaining three Super Formula races, after making a successful return to the series at Autopolis.

The seven-time Formula 2 race-winner quit his MP Motorsport seat in that series mid-season, and got called up to make a Super GT appearance in Japan before B-MAX called him up to substitute for Sergio Sette Camara in SF’s last race.

Matsushita, who raced in SF in 2018, qualified seventh on his return and finished sixth. He will remain in the car for next weekend’s Suzuka double-header, and then the Fuji Speedway season finale in late December.

“I am grateful for this opportunity to run the remaining three races in Super Formula,” said Matsushita.

“I’ve had a tough time since I lost my F2 seat in September. However, it was a very good to get the chance to be able to run in Super Formula during this time. With all the B-Max team who believed in me, I’ll do my best to win the rest of the races.”

Sette Camara had been ruled out of the first two SF rounds by travel restrictions, then took pole on his series debut at Sportsland SUGO before crashing out of the race and then being made unavailable again for Autopolis as he prepared for a full-time Formula E move.

B-MAX by Motopark’s team principal Satoshi Motoyama, himself a four-time SF champion, added:

“I am very happy that Nobuharu Matsushita, who showed a very good performance at Autopolis, will drive the remaining three races.

“We will improve there and the podium is certainly [on the cards], and we will aim to win. The whole team will work hard to get good results.”

Despite missing the first three rounds, Matsushita is still mathematically in contention for the 2020 SF title, although he is exactly two rounds’ worth of points behind championship leader Ryo Hirakawa.

The post B-MAX retains Matsushita for rest of Super Formula season appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Honda Racing

Formula 2 race-winner Nobuharu Matsushita was pleased to be back racing a single-seater after returning to action in Super Formula at Autopolis last weekend.

The Japanese driver raced in GP2/F2 from 2015 to 2017, before Honda found him a seat in SF and he raced in his home country in 2018.

Matsushita wanted to pursue to a career in Formula 1 though, having previously been part of McLaren’s young driver programme when it used Honda power, and he returned to F2 until leaving the series abruptly midway through this season.

He landed a drive with ex-F1 outfit Team Aguri in Super GT earlier this month, then recieved a surprise call-up to race in SF last weekend in place of Red Bull-affiliated Sergio Sette Camara at B-MAX Racing with Motopark.

“In qualifying I was sixth. Because of the influence of the red flag, it was an attack with used tyres, so I think that we were able to put out everything we could have,” said Matsushita after qualifying.

Crashes in the first segment of qualifying led to red flag stoppages, and Matsushita lost his first flying lap to the timing of those flags. The clock was rolled back when Q1 restarted though, enabling Matsushita to set a lap that was good enough to progress to Q2. He then did a good enough job to make Q3, and qualified sixth for his first race in the Dallara SF19 car.

“Race was sixth place. I was fighting for the podium, but the loss in the pitstops was very wasteful,” he said post-race.

“However, it was a lot of fun to be able to demonstrate my inherent potential by getting back in this formula [in this way]. It was two days when I felt happy to be able to race again. B-MAX Racing, thank you very much.”

Matsushita moved up to fourth place by taking the outside line going into the opening corner of the race, and remained there until taking his compulsory pitstop during an early safety car period.

That dropped him to eighth, behind three other early stoppers who he had been ahead of on track, and he only gained positions in the final few laps when TOM’S driver Nick Cassidy and Team Mugen’s Ukyo Sasahara took their pitstops.

Reigning SF champion Cassidy was impressed by Matsushita’s driving, and the 27-year-old may remain in the B-MAX car for the double-header Suzuka round next month after also impressing four-time SF champion Satoshi Motoyama, who is executive advisor of Nissan’s motorsport division and also works with B-MAX.

The post Matsushita grateful for return to single-seaters in Super Formula appeared first on Formula Scout.

Nick Cassidy was first to set a lap in Group A in Q1, but with one minute to go his unrepresentative effort still stood as the fastest.

Tadasuke Makino then became the first driver to lap at true qualifying pace, with Nirei Fukuzumi going faster and Yuhi Sekugichi slotting in behind.

Hiroaki Ishiura went third with 20s to go, just as red flags were waved after Yuichi Nakayama spun off. This hurt series returnee Nobuaru Matsushita, whose first flying lap came in after the flags appeared.

The session was restarted though, enabling Matsushita to set a lap good enough for seventh and therefore progressing to Q2, while Cassidy went fastest at the very end.

It was a similar story in Group B, though this time Naoki Yamamoto was smart enough to put a genuine flying lap down early on. It was worth it, as only he and Toshiki Oyu had lapped before points leader Ryo Hirakawa crashed and caused a red flag.

Oyu’s lap also came in too late, but he rebounded when the session restarted to go second fastest behind Yamamoto. Hirakawa, who has two poles this year, will start the race from the back row.

Everyone took the risk again in Q2, with Makino the only to even set an outlap before the final two minutes.

The first flying lap came with 40s to go, set by returning rookie Ritomo Miyata. By going early it actually proved an advantage, as on his next lap he improved to go joint fastest with Yamamoto.

A flurry of laps came in after the chequered flag, with Matsushita and Sho Tsuboi jumping from the bottom of the timesheet to make the top-eight Q3 shootout.

Yamamoto got a lap in early in Q3, but one that was off the pace, and once more it came down to a battle in the final moments. Having set a lap before the chequered flag, Dandelion’s Fukuzumi and Yamamoto and Mugen’s Nojiri were the only three really in contention, and it was Nojiri who prevailed with his second effort by 0.015s over Fukuzumi.

Tsuboi will fill row two alongside Yamamoto, with Ishiura and Matsushita impressing to go fifth and sixth, while Cassidy missed the window to set a lap.

Qualifying results

The post Nojiri on pole, Hirakawa crashes in Super Formula Autopolis qualifying appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Formula Motorsport Limited

Nobuharu Matsushita has received a surprise call-up to replace Sergio Sette Camara in B-MAX Racing with Motopark’s Super Formula line-up at Autopolis this weekend.

Sette Camara, who has been Red Bull’s Formula 1 reserve driver and a race driver for Dragon / Penske Autosport in Formula E at times this year, made his SF debut last time out at Sportsland SUGO and claimed pole before crashing out of the race.

The Brazilian, whose debut was delayed by travel restrictions and was replaced by Sebastien Buemi in his F1 role as a result of his Japan-based SF commitments, was on the entry list for Autopolis but has now been announced as being absent and replaced by Matsushita.

Former Honda junior Matsushita raced in GP2/Formula 2 from 2015 to 2017, but with his prospects of making it to F1 looking slim he was called back to Japan and raced for Dandelion Racing in SF in 2018.

He finished 11th in the points, but rather than remain in the series he returned to F2. In 2019 he raced for Carlin and had his most competitive season to date, which included race-winning cameos with the team in Euroformula, then in 2020 he rejected a return to Japan – despite an SF seat being on offer – and chose to move to MP Motorsport.

Matsushita claimed a historic feature race win from 17th on the grid at Barcelona, but he left the team just three rounds later as he “decided to move on to fresh challenges elsewhere”, believed to be influenced by MP’s handling of an on-track clash between himself and team-mate Felipe Drugovich at Spa-Francorchamps.

He made a return to racing in Super GT300 last weekend with Team Aguri, and will likely stay in the Japanese sportscar series for its season finale at the end of this month.

While his SF call-up is understood to be a one-off, and comes after sampling the current Dallara SF19 car in last year’s rookie test at Suzuka, Matsushita may continue with the outfit if Sette Camara remains in Dragon’s plans for the 2020-21 FE season. However it is more probable that B-MAX would run a single car rather than seek a replacement driver.

The post Matsushita replaces Sette Camara in Super Formula for Autopolis appeared first on Formula Scout.

Hughes finished seventh in FIA F3 this year, taking a brace of victories in the second half of the season. At the Mugello season finale, he revealed that he would not return to the category after racing for five years at that level.

Ferrari junior Giuliano Alesi has scored once in the car Hughes will drive in Sochi, and the Frenchman parted ways with the team after the last round at Mugello to join MP as its usual driver Nobuharu Matsushita has decided to leave F2.

“I am really looking forward to my first races in Formula 2,” said Hughes. “Many thanks to HWA Racelab for giving me this chance. The Formula 3 season finished recently after nine race weekends in eleven weeks, so I am totally in the racing routine.

“I will have to get used to the cars first, as they have significantly more power than the F3 cars. But I am looking forward to taking on this challenge.”

Hughes will driver alongside local hero Artem Markelov in Sochi, but the series veteran has also struggled this year and only scored twice. The team sits 10th of 11 in the teams championship in its first year in F2, and only its second running teams in junior single-seaters.

Alesi will partner race-winning rookie Felipe Drugovich at MP, and commented: “I am super happy, excited and most of all motivated to be working with MP and starting this new adventure in F2. So I’m really looking forward to Sochi, and can’t wait to get in the car and get started.”

Matsushita, who has raced in GP2/F2 for five seasons, said he has “decided to move on to fresh challenges elsewhere”.

The post Hughes to debut in F2 with HWA, Alesi replaces Matsushita at MP appeared first on Formula Scout.