Autopolis Super Formula: Alesi wins truncated race

Having qualified on pole position in a tricky wet weather qualifying on Saturday, Alesi led all 13 completed laps of the 42-lap contest to claim the TOM’S team first victory since last season’s Sugo round.

It was only the second outing in Super Formula for Alesi, who was substituting for Kazuki Nakajima following the ex-Formula 1 driver’s trip to the Spa round of the FIA World Endurance Championship.

Multiple F2 race winner Nobuharu Matsushita took full advantage of the chaos that ensued on the opening lap to jump from 13th to third, and then secured a career-best second after Yuhi Sekiguchi ran wide at the final corner just as the race was about to resume after a safety car period.

Alesi’s teammate Ritomo Miyata had started second but dropped down the order after running wide at Turn 1 at the start, recovering to finish fourth behind the Inging car of Sena Sakaguchi, and just ahead of a charging Nojiri.

Mugen driver Nojiri dropped outside of the points positions on the first lap but rapidly moved through the field between the two safety car interruptions, with the highlight being a triple pass on Kazuto Kotaka, Toshiki Oyu and the struggling Sekiguchi on the run down to Turn 1.

He was eventually classified fifth, ahead of teammate Hiroki Otsu in the Red Bull-branded Mugen car.

Oyu finished seventh for Nakajima Racing, while Kazuya Oshima - who crashed heavily in qualifying - rose from 16th on the grid to finish eighth.

Three-time Super Formula champion Naoki Yamamoto (Nakajima Racing) moved up to ninth following a five-second safety car infringement penalty for Sekiguchi, who finished 10th.

Nirei Fukuzumi (Dandelion) was likewise given a five-second penalty for contact, dropping him to 12th.

With less than 75% of the race completed, only half points were awarded, with Alesi bagging 10 points on top of the three he scored for claiming pole on Saturday.

Both last year’s runner-up Ryo Hirakawa and Sho Tsuboi retired after spinning on their own at Turn 1 on the opening lap, prompting the first safety car deployment of the day.

A second safety car was called on lap 11 as the rain and fog worsened, before the race was red flagged on the following tour.

The organisers waited for more than half an hour for conditions to improve and the race was provisionally supposed to resume at 4.20pm local time, only for it to be delayed again.

Finally, at 4.30pm a decision was made to not resume the race, and with less than 75% of the planned distance completed, half points were awarded.

That means Nojiri continues to lead the championship with 48 points ahead of Hirakawa (23) and Oyu (21).

UPDATE: Matsushita was later handed a five-second time penalty for a start line infringement, dropping him to third behind Sakaguchi.

Race results:

Cla	#	Driver	Team	Laps	Gap
1	36	Giuliano Alesi	Kuo VANTELIN TEAM TOM’S	11
2	39	Sena Sakaguchi	P.MU/CERUMO･INGING	11	7.521
3	51	Nobuharu Matsushita	B-Max Racing Team	11	7.755
4	37	Ritomo Miyata	Kuo VANTELIN TEAM TOM’S	11	8.236
5	16	Tomoki Nojiri	Team Mugen	11	11.325
6	15	Hiroki Otsu	Red Bull MUGEN Team Goh	11	17.624
7	64	Toshiki Oyu	TCS Nakajima Racing	11	20.596
8	14	Kazuya Oshima	NTT Communications ROOKIE	11	23.793
9	1	Naoki Yamamoto	TCS Nakajima Racing	11	34.572
10	19	Yuhi Sekiguchi	Team Impul	11	36.012
11	3	Kenta Yamashita	Kondo Racing	11	38.731
12	12	Koudai Tsukakoshi	ThreeBond Drago CORSE	11	39.956
13	5	Nirei Fukuzumi	DoCoMo Team Dandelion Racing	11	42.205
14	6	Tadasuke Makino	DoCoMo Team Dandelion Racing	11	46.216
15	4	Yuichi Nakayama	Kondo Racing	11	52.311
16	7	Kazuto Kotaka	KCMG	10	1 Lap
17	18	Yuji Kunimoto	KCMG	0
18	20	Ryo Hirakawa	Team Impul	0
19	38	Sho Tsuboi	P.MU/CERUMO･INGING	0
View full results