How Toyota's brightest Super Formula hope got his groove back

By:

Jamie Klein

Apr 5, 2022, 11:40 AM

Having won the SUPER GT title for the TOM'S Toyota squad last year, Sho Tsuboi endured a miserable Super Formula campaign alongside, managing just six points all year. But after going back to basics with the Inging team over the off-season, Tsuboi looks revitalised in his pursuit of Japan's top single-seater crown

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“I’m so glad I don’t drive in Super Formula anymore,” says one alumnus of Japan’s top single-seater championship. “I spent so much time trying to work out how to go fast in that car and I just couldn’t figure it out. It was so, so frustrating.”

There are several Super Formula racers who could have sympathised with that driver last year. Three-time series champion Naoki Yamamoto, Kenta Yamashita and Sho Tsuboi were among those to inexplicably struggle in 2021, with their woes made even more baffling by the fact that all three were competitive in Japan’s other top series, SUPER GT.

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Jamie Klein

Jamie Klein is one of Motorsport.com’s Global News Editors, reporting primarily on the FIA World Endurance Championship, Super Formula and SUPER GT. He took his first steps into motorsport journalism in 2013 as a freelancer before joining Motorsport Network full-time in 2015 as UK Editor. In 2016, he moved into a more wide-ranging role as he became a regular in the paddocks of the WEC and MotoGP. After a two-month trip to Japan in late 2018 gave him his first taste of reporting live on Super Formula and SUPER GT, he made the move to Tokyo permanently in 2019, and has been a regular presence in both paddocks since 2020. Away from motorsport, he is studying the Japanese language and can often be found relaxing in an ‘onsen’ (hot spring) or gorging on ramen, occasionally at the same time. He can be found on Twitter at @JamieKlein_.