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Yuto Nomura wins a three-way battle to clinch his 10th win of the season
Yuto Nomura（HFDP WITH B-MAX RACING）
Following four practice sessions over two days, qualifying for Rd 16 of the 2025 Japanese Super Formula Lights championship got underway at 8:50am on Saturday at Mobility Resort Motegi.
Amid cold conditions below 10C all the cars needed to do a few laps to get their tires up to temperature before launching attacks. With each driver improving their times one after another, Yuto Nomura driving HFDP WITH B-MAX RACING posted 1m43.135 on his final lap to take pole position.
Yuki Sano (in Mobility Chukyo TOM’S TGR-DC SFL) was second, just 0.012sec behind. Despite having done only five laps Rikuto Kobayashi (Mobility Chukyo TOM’S TGR-DC SFL) secured third with a time of 1m43.292.
Ken Alex (BUZZ RACING) took master-class pole position on his Super Formula Lights debut with a time of 1m45.147.
Start of Round.16■Close top three scrap continues until final stages
As the race started at 2:10pm for 14 laps Nomura made a clean getaway from pole, while another front row sitter Sano got wheelspin, losing his second place to Kobayashi. Sano was also passed by Yusuke Mitsui (DELiGHTWORKS) who had started from fourth, but quickly reclaimed the third place at S-bend.
As predicted by the practice sessions’ results the front runners engaged in close scrap from the opening lap, with Kobayashi in second keeping his gap to Nomura at about a second and being closely tailed by Sano by about a second.
Mitsui running in fourth was closely followed by Hiyu Yamakoshi (DELiGHTWORKS), a wild-card entrant for this season’s final event, and Yuga Furutani (Deloitte. HTP TOM'S SFL), and a little further back, a pack of four cars headed by Kazuhisa Urabe (B-MAX RACING 324) was battling over seventh spot.
As is often seen at Motegi, where downforce can easily be lost, making it difficult for overtaking to occur the race had seen few events for several laps apart from a scuffle over fourth place between Mitsui and Yamakoshi, and a battle over seventh place among Urabe, Esteban Masson (PONOS Racing TOM’S TGR-DC SFL) and Zach David (B-MAX RACING 324) until Nobuhiro Imada (JMS RACING with B-MAX) in master class went off the track on lap nine, causing the safety car to be deployed.
The order at the front remained unchanged after the safety car pulled off with two laps to go, and Nomura clinched his 10th win with lights-to-flag victory. Kobayashi was second and Sano was third.
The battle between DELiGHTWORKS RACING teammates was won by Mitsui who held on for fourth. Yamakoshi recorded points finish in fifth in his first race in SFL. Furutani completed points in sixth.
Yasuhiro Shimizu（GNSY RACING 324）
■Shimizu wins to be crowned master-class champion
In master class, meanwhile, the pole-sitter Alex got a sluggish start as he had hardly practiced starts, seeing Yasuhiro Shimizu (GNSY RACING) and Imada breeze past him. He also spun at the exit of the final Victory turn and dropped further back.
With the race leaders lapping within a second of one another thereafter, Shimizu proceeded to gradually open up his lead, leaving Imada and DRAGON (TEAM DRAGON 324) to fight a close battle.
However, the safety car was deployed when Imada suffered an off at the hairpin on lap nine.
After the restart Shimizu opened up his lead once again and won to be crowned master-class champion.
Alex caught up with DRAGON, but the latter held on for second place.
