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Shun Koide maintains his lead during late safety car period to win Rd 5
Syun Koide（HFDP WITH B-MAX RACING）
Japanese Super Formula Lights Rd five was fought on the final day of the Autopolis event.
The pole position for this second race of the season had been secured by Shun Koide in HFDP WITH B-MAX RACING on Saturday with a time of 1m37.060 as a change in his balance setup made after the qualifying for Rd 4 paid off.
Rikuto Kobayashi (Mobility Chukyo TOM’S 320 TGR-DC), the pole-sitter for Rd four took another front-row position ahead of Jin Nakamura (Mobility Chukyo TOM’S 320).
Each driver lined up on the starting grid with a certain amount of experiences gained in the last race with new engines and new tyres introduced for 2024.
Start of Round.5■Nonaka snatches second spot with a superb start
The formation lap started at 9am under cloudy skies with occasional sunshine. Koide got a clean start to retain his lead heading into the first corner, while Kobayashi stalled his machine just after the start, allowing Seita Nonaka (PONOS Racing TOM’S 320 TGR-DC) who had got the best start of the field from sixth on the grid, and Nakamura to follow right behind Koide.
Benefitting from fresh rubber Koide easily pulled away from Nonaka on used rubber, leaving him to deal with strong charge from Nakamura on fresher tyres. With the gap between Koide and Nonaka extending to 2.598secs on lap three Nonaka and Nakamura went nose-to-tail.
The duel over second spot was concluded on lap seven when Nakamura capitalised his better pace to rapidly come out of the final turn to slipstream on Nonaka before diving down the inside of his rival at the first corner to move up to second.
The mid-race also saw another tense battle fought behind them between Kaylen Frederick (Pilot ONE Racing with B-MAX) – who had jumped up to fourth at the start – and Yuga Furutani (Deloitte. HTP TOM’S 320).
Jin Nakamura and Seita Nonaka■A safety car intervention bunches up the leading pack
The race looked to remain eventless until the end, but Yasuhiro Shimizu (GNSY 324) running third in the master class came to a halt in the gravel at the final turn on lap nine, bringing out the safety car to remove his machine and wiping out respective gaps among the race leaders.
Nakamura tried to get a jump on Koide at the restart on lap 12, only Koide to hold off to take his first victory of the season. Placing second ahead of Nonaka was the first SFL podium result for Nakamura.
The battle for fourth between Frederic and Furutani came into the last lap, with Frederic claiming the spot for the second race in a row. Rin Arakawa (TEAM DRAGON 324) finished sixth behind Furutani.
A close master-class scrap between Nobuhiro Imada (JMS RACING TEAM) and DRAGON (TEAM DRAGON 324) was won by Imada again in Rd five.
