TOPICS
Shun Koide cruises to his sixth win with another lights-to-flag display
Syun Koide（HFDP WITH B-MAX RACING）
2024 Japanese Super Formula Lights series’ fifth Okayama event finally entered Rd 15 race to wrap up its four-day program, and according to the finishing order of Rd 13 Shun Koide in HFDP WITH B-MAX RACING would start from pole position with the Rd 14 winner Kaylen Frederick (Pilot ONE Racing with B-MAX) as a fellow front-row starter.
The second row was shared by Rikuto Kobayashi (Mobility Chukyo TOM’S 320 TGR-DC) and Seita Nonaka (PONOS Racing TOM’S 320 TGR-DC), who had crashed out with each other in the previous race, and the third row was taken by Jin Nakamura (Mobility Chukyo TOM’S 320) and Souta Arao (HFDP WITH TODA RACING).
Rd 15 was contested by 12 cars as Nobuhiro Imada (JMS RACING TEAM) was forced to miss the race due to car damage sustained through the accident in Rd 14.
Start of Round.15■Koide takes the holeshot
As the race got underway at 1:55pm under clearer skies and in hot and humid conditions Koide got away cleanly to retain the lead from Frederick and Kobayashi.
Behind them a hard-charging Nakamura almost got alongside Nonaka at Attwood and kept pushing him through the next few corners, only to be rebuffed, and then overtaken by Arao, instead.
Koide set the fastest lap of 1m24.658 on lap two as he did in Rd 13 to extend his lead over Frederick. Similarly, Kobayashi gradually closed in on Frederick as in Rd 13.
Kaylen Frederick （Pilot ONE Racing with B-MAX）
■Four consecutive master-class wins for DRAGON
Koide continued to manage his tyres in the closing stages to complete 18 laps with 5.270 secs advantage over Frederic, marking his sixth win of the season.
A close battle over runner-up spot with Kobayashi chasing Frederick by a few tenths was later turned into a 4-way battle with addition of Nonaka and Arao, but the positions remained unchanged in the end as Frederick held on for second ahead of Kobayashi, the same podium lineup as in Rd 13.
Nakamura rounded out the points finish by placing a distant sixth behind Nonaka and Arao.
In the meanwhile, master-class pole-sitter DRAGON (TEAM DRAGON 324) lost out to Makoto Fujiwara (TEAM DRAGON 324) at the start, but recovered to close right on to the tail of Fujiwara on lap five. Yasuhiro Shimizu (GNSY 324) also joined the class lead battle on lap eight.
The three-way battle was eventually won by DRAGON who snatched back the lead on lap eight when he overtook Fujiwara on the run to Revolver, stretching his winning streak that began in Rd 12 Fuji to four races.
