Sho Tsuboi made it a double Super Formula victory at Fuji on Sunday to grab the championship lead heading into the final weekend of the season next month at Suzuka.
TOM’S man Tsuboi converted his first pole of the year into another win at Fuji, giving himself a perfect record at the Toyota-owned venue in 2024 and becoming the first driver to win two races in a single weekend since Andre Lotterer in 2011.
Nirei Fukuzumi proved Tsuboi’s nearest challenger in an incident-strewn race that featured no fewer than three safety car periods, finishing second for KCMG, while Tadasuke Makino cemented second in the standings in third place.
The first caution period came on just the second lap of 41 as Iori Kimura tipped Atsushi Miyake into a spin at the Turn 10 right-hander, with Nyck de Vries also getting caught up in the melee and having to pit for a fresh front wing.
Tsuboi maintained the lead through to the second safety car period, triggered when Kazuya Oshima was sent into a spin by Yuji Kunimoto at Turn 1.
That came not long after the pit window opened and several frontrunners, including Fukuzumi, had come into the pits for their mandatory stops.
But with Tsuboi able to complete his in-lap at virtually unabated pace, he maintained the lead ahead of Fukuzumi, while Ren Sato beat Makino out of the pits to move into third.
After the restart on lap 17, Tsuboi began to eke away from Fukuzumi, but the KCMG driver kept the leader in his sights and was only a matter of tenths behind when the safety car made its final appearance on lap 32.
That followed a collision between Sena Sakaguchi and Naoki Yamamoto exiting Turn 2, which saw the front of Yamamoto’s Nakajima Racing car get airborne as he rode up on the back of Sakaguchi’s Inging machine.
Yamamoto was seen being stretchered into an ambulance and was taken to the medical centre for checks.
Tomoki Nojiri, TEAM MUGEN
Photo by: Masahide Kamio
The race resumed with just three laps left with Tsuboi heading home Fukuzumi by 1.3 seconds, while Makino was able to wrest third back off Ren Sato prior to the final safety car period.
That means he heads to next month’s Suzuka finale trailing Tsuboi by 14.5 points, with 46 on offer across the double-header weekend.
Sato still claimed his best finish of the year for Nakajima Racing in fourth, ahead of Kakunoshin Ota, who recovered well from 14th on the grid in the second Dandelion car.
Kamui Kobayashi was sixth in the second KCMG car after a late pass on Red Bull junior Ayumu Iwasa, the Mugen driver having started down in 12th after his best lap in qualifying was taken away for a track limits breach.
After his early dramas, de Vries recovered to finish eighth in his final outing for Team Impul, passing a fading Tomoki Nojiri (Mugen) just prior to the final caution period, while Kenta Yamashita claimed the final point for Kondo Racing in 10th
Nojiri finds himself 18.5 points down on Tsuboi after losing six places from his grid position.
The results remain provisional subject to the outcome of several investigations, including a moment between Makino and Sato under the safety car, and de Vries for aggressive driving in his battle with Yamashita.
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Source: Autosport