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Iori Kimura leads from start-to-finish for his fourth victory
Iori Kimura（HFDP WITH B-MAX RACING）
The day after the rain-affected thrilling Rd 7 the Japanese Super Formula Lights Suzuka event has now moved on to Rd 8 and Rd 9 races on Sunday.
For the Rd 8 qualifying on Saturday each driver had modified their car set-up based on the lessons learnt from the previous session. Igor Omura Fraga (in FANATEC-GRAN TURISMO with B-MAX) and DRAGON (TEAM DRAGON B-MAX 320) had missed it due to electric and cell motor failures respectively.
Iori Kimura (HFDP WITH B-MAX RACING) topped the session contested by 10 cars with 1m53.773 to claim pole position, with Seita Nonaka (PONOS Racing TOM’S 320 TGR-DC) placing second.
The front rows had been almost dominated by TOM’S as Hibiki Taira (in Mobility Chukyo TOM’S 320 TGR-DC) and Enzo Trulli (Mobility Chukyo TOM’S 320) had shared the second row.
Start of Round.8■Kimura retains his lead at the start
The formation lap began at 9:15 am under clear skies. Despite amid hot temperatures every car got a clean getaway with no engine stalls, and Kimura took the holeshot from Nonaka and Taira.
Having made a good start from sixth Yuga Furutani (Deloitte, HTP TOM’S 320) rose to fourth, followed by Shun Koide (HFDP WITH TODA RACING). Trulli dropped down the order to seventh behind David Vidales (B-MAX RACING 320).
Kimura started to pull away from lap two, posting fast laps in succession with 1m55.113 on lap two and 1m54.919 on lap three.
Left more than two seconds adrift of the race leader Nonaka now saw Taira get onto the tail of him, the two running nose-to-tail within a second of each other like they did in Rd 7 but in the opposite order.
Hibiki Taira（Mobility Chukyo TOM'S 320 TGR-DC）
■Battle for runner-up comes down to very final lap
As expected from the practice sessions that saw very little time differences among the individual drivers Rd 8 had close battles fought at various points of the race including the one between Furutani and Koide for fourth place and the one between Vidales and Trulli for sixth place.
In the close scrap for second place Taira challenged Nonaka again and again but struggled to seize an opportunity at this difficult-to-overtake Suzuka Circuit.
Staying out of the tense situation behind Kimura steadily opened up his lead to eventually 7.310 secs at the flag, making a brilliant recovery from the setback in the last round with his fourth victory of the season.
The fight for runner-up came down to the very final lap with Taira having the car ahead within range at Spoon to finally overtake Nonaka at Hitachi Astemo chicane to finish second.
Furutani and Koide placed fourth and fifth respectively. Vidales maintained the sixth spot to take final point on offer.
Takashi Hata (A-NeKT with B-MAX 320) finished 11th overall and made it back-to-back master class win after passing DRAGON (TEAM DRAGON B-MAX 320) on lap six.
Iori Kimura（HFDP WITH B-MAX RACING）
Seita Nonaka（PONOS Racing TOM'S 320 TGR-DC）
Yuga Furutani（Deloitte. HTP TOM'S 320）
