TOPICS
Rikuto Kobayashi grabs lead on the opening lap for his third win
Rikuto Kobayashi（Mobility Chukyo TOM'S 320 TGR-DC）
One night after the Rd 1 in which Shun Koide in HFDP WITH B-MAX RACING was crowned 2024 champion, the Super Formula Lights Motegi event entered Rd 2 and the season finale on Sunday in a chilly air but under clear autumn skies.
The grid for Rd 2 had the same top three lineup as that for the previous round as pole position was taken by Koide with a time of 1m42.613, followed by Rikuto Kobayashi (Mobility Chukyo TOM'S 320 TGR-DC) who had set 1m43.245, and Rin Arakawa (B-MAX RACING 324)
Having moved up from seventh in the qualifying for Rd 1 Jin Nakamura (Mobility Chukyo TOM’S TGR-DC) claimed fourth with 1m43.273 for the formation lap that would start at 9:20am.
Having endured a dismal Saturday with electrical failures Seita Nonaka managed to put his PONOS Racing TOM’S 320 TGR-DC in 11th.
Start of Round.2■A fierce lead battle fought by Koide and Kobayashi on the first lap
As the lights went out Kobayashi made a stunning getaway from second, getting alongside Koide at Turn one and overtaking him on the run to V-shape turn.
Arakawa lost several positions, moving Nakamura, Kaylen Frederick (Pilot ONE Racing with B-MAX) and Togo Suganami (JMS RACING TEAM) up to third, fourth and fifth respectively.
Suganami brushed Frederick heading into Turn five on lap two, dropping down the order.
Kobayashi, Koide and Nakamura were gradually bunched up to form a leading pack, which would be closely followed by Frederick and Souta Arao (HFDP WITH TODA RACING) who had passed Arakawa for fifth.
小林利徠斗（Mobility Chukyo TOM'S 320 TGR-DC）
■DRAGON makes it back-to-back master class wins
A solid pace of the race leaders, however, made it difficult to make overtaking passes happen here at Motegi, and they crossed the line with no further position changes.
As a result, Kobayashi marked his third win of the season. Nakamura scored a podium finish in third with fresh rubber saved for this round. Frederick, Arao and Arakawa completed the top six.
Nonaka played catch up to finish eighth.
In master class, in the meanwhile, DRAGON (TEAM DRAGON 324) took class lead once again at the start, but Yasuhiro Shimizu (GNSY 324) clung on to DRAGON. Their head-to-head battle continued to the final lap, with DRAGON fending off Shimizu by 0.418 secs to make it back-to-back class wins.
