Suzuka Super Formula: Miyata gets first win, Nojiri crashes out

TOM'S driver Miyata came from 12th on the grid to pass Tsuboi around the outside of Turn 1 on the penultimate lap of the 31-lap race to seal his first win in the Japanese single-seater category.

Miyata had vaulted into contention thanks to a safety car period that was called when Nojiri and Oyu came to blows on the latter driver's out lap, putting both in the barriers and out of the race.

Ryo Hirakawa made a late pass on Liam Lawson to finish third, completing an-all Toyota podium.

Story of the race

After an aborted start, owing to Dandelion Racing's Tadasuke Makino failing to get going from the grid, TGM Grand Prix poleman Oyu led the opening stages as Inging's Tsuboi and Nojiri settled into second and third places.

Lawson however was the driver on the move, jumping from eighth on the grid to fourth on the opening lap, and on the third lap he managed to clear Mugen team-mate Nojiri to move up to third.

Nojiri meanwhile appeared to be struggling, dropping another place to Kondo Racing man Kenta Yamashita.

When the pit window opened on lap 10, Lawson was first of the leaders to come in for his mandatory stop, followed by Tsuboi next time around.

Lawson came out behind Tsuboi and was unable to take advantage as the Inging driver got his tyres up to temperature.

Nojiri likewise pitted on lap 11, jumping back ahead of Yamashita in the process, but Oyu decided to delay his stop until lap 19, by which time Miyata had made his way up to second by virtue of staying out.

While Tsuboi and Lawson cleared Oyu with the undercut effect, Nojiri came out right behind the TGM driver and was looking for a way past as they entered the first sector.

But Nojiri made a grave misjudgement when he rear-ended Oyu at the Turn 5 left-hander, causing both cars to spear into the barriers and putting the two SUPER GT team-mates out of the race.

The subsequent safety car allowed Miyata and others, including Impul driver Hirakawa, to complete their pitstops with minimal time loss, but Tsuboi maintained the lead from Lawson, with Miyata slotting into third ahead of Hirakawa.

When the race resumed on lap 24, Lawson was immediately under pressure from Miyata on fresh tyres, with the TOM'S man getting the move done at Turn 1 at the start of the 26th lap to grab second.

Miyata then cruised up to the back of Tsuboi, and while the Inging driver had been saving his Overtake System allocation for the final showdown, he was powerless to resist an inspired Miyata, who got a superior run out of the chicane to set up a bold outside move at Turn 1 on lap 29.

From there, Miyata cruised to his first Super Formula win and a first in nearly two years for TOM'S by three seconds from Tsuboi.

 

At the same time as the lead battle was decided, Hirakawa passed Lawson for a third with a near-identical outside move to make it an all-Toyota podium - the first in Super Formula since 2020.

Yamashita had to be content with fifth place ahead of Sena Sakaguchi in the second Inging machine and Kazuto Kotaka, who scored his best finish in Super Formula yet with seventh for Kondo.

Giuliano Alesi (TOM'S), rookie Cem Bolukbasi (TGM) and Nirei Fukuzumi (ThreeBond) completed the points scorers.

Besides Nojiri and Oyu, the only other non-finisher was Nakajima Racing's Ren Sato, who suffered a technical problem shortly after the aborted start.

Nojiri maintains the lead of the championship on 42 points, with Miyata now his nearest challenger on 38 ahead of Lawson on 35.

Race results:

Cla	#	Driver	Team	Laps	Gap
1	37	Ritomo Miyata	Vantelin Team TOM'S	30
2	38	Sho Tsuboi	JMS P.mu/cerumo-INGING	30	3.022
3	20	Ryo Hirakawa	ITOCHU ENEX TEAM IMPUL	30	3.404
4	15	Liam Lawson	Team Mugen	30	4.130
5	3	Kenta Yamashita	Kondo Racing	30	8.709
6	39	Sena Sakaguchi	JMS P.mu/cerumo-INGING	30	12.366
7	4	Kazuto Kotaka	Kondo Racing	30	13.071
8	36	Giuliano Alesi	Vantelin Team TOM'S	30	15.213
9	55	Cem Bolukbasi	TGM Grand Prix	30	15.728
10	12	Nirei Fukuzumi	ThreeBond Racing	30	16.124
11	64	Naoki Yamamoto	TCS Nakajima Racing	30	16.662
12	50	Nobuharu Matsushita	B-Max Racing Team	30	18.095
13	14	Kazuya Oshima	docomo business ROOKIE	30	18.297
14	7	Kamui Kobayashi	Team KCMG	30	20.130
15	5	Tadasuke Makino	Dandelion Racing	30	20.983
16	18	Yuji Kunimoto	Team KCMG	30	26.393
17	6	Kakunoshin Ota	Dandelion Racing	30	26.897
18	51	Raoul Hyman	B-Max Racing Team	30	34.337
19	19	Yuhi Sekiguchi	ITOCHU ENEX TEAM IMPUL	29	1 Lap
20	53	Toshiki Oyu	TGM Grand Prix	19	11 Laps
21	1	Tomoki Nojiri	Team Mugen	19	11 Laps
22	65	Ren Sato	TCS Nakajima Racing	0
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