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Seita Nonaka secures fourth victory after a close lead battle
Seita Nonaka（PONOS Racing TOM'S 320 TGR-DC）
After three practice sessions, the third day of the Japanese Super Formula Lights championship’ Suzuka event started at 8:15am on Saturday with qualifying for Rd 16 under clear skies, even though the forecast had called for cloudy weather.
The drivers did three or four laps to warm up tires before setting out on attacks.
It was Seita Nonaka in PONOS Racing TOM’S 320 TGR-DC who took pole position with 1m51.305, surprisingly for the first time in his career.
Qualifying second was Souta Arao (HFDP WITH TODA RACING), who had kept up strong pace since the practice sessions, and third was Jin Nakamura (Mobility Chukyo TOM’S 320 TGR-DC). The championship leader Shun Koide (HFDP WITH B-MAX RACING) qualified fourth.
Yuga Furutani (Deloitte. HTP TOM’S 320) posted a good time but it was not classified due to his off-the-track running.
Start of Round.16■Early stages see heated battles over third and fifth
Rd 16 race was scheduled to get underway about three hours after Rd 17 qualifying, but the formation lap was started late at 0:35pm due to a prolonged parade on the track.
As the lights went out Nonaka pulled away from Arao – who was getting wheelspin – to retain his lead into the first corner. Nakamura struggled to get up to speed, ceding third spot to a fifth starting Rikuto Kobayashi (Mobility Chukyo TOM’S 320 TGR-DC).
Koide lost one place at the start, and then was passed by Kaylen Frederick (Pilot ONE Racing with B-MAX) to drop down to sixth.
With Nonaka extending his lead to four seconds at one stage in the early laps Kobayashi and Nakamura were fighting a heated battle for third place.
A little behind, Koide initially made overtaking moves on his team-mate, trying to improve his place as much as possible to stay on top in the standings, but was unable to find an opportunity. He would instead find himself being rapidly caught up by Furutani from the back of the field, engaging in a furious three-way scrap over fifth.
Seita Nonaka（PONOS Racing TOM'S 320 TGR-DC）
■Lead battle intensifies towards the end
The battle over third between Kobayashi and Nakamura and the battle among Frederick, Koide and Furutani were settling down in the middle stages, while a lead battle now began to heat up as Nonaka began to struggle with his waning tires on lap 10, prompting Arao to rapidly reduce the gap that had opened up to four seconds.
It was reduced to 1.154 secs on lap 12, and then to 0.920 secs on lap 14 before opening up again on lap 15 when Arao slightly got off the track at Degner on similarly waning tires.
Nevertheless, he put in a determined late charge, while “managing to nurse tires”, to get the gap down to 0.473 secs at the end of the penultimate lap.
However, Nonaka held off Arao by 0.411 secs for his fourth win of the season, the result that reduced the gap to championship leader Koide – who finished sixth – from 29 to 19 points. ‘In the end, I hung on just with my spirit,’ said the TOM’S driver.
Third and fourth went to Kobayashi and Nakamura respectively. The close scrap over fifth came down to the very final lap with Frederick defending fifth place from Koide and Furutani.
In master class, in the meanwhile, Yasuhiro Shimizu (GNSY 324) regained his lead that he had lost out to DRAGON (TEAM DRAGON 324) at the start and proceeded to extend it to take his first class win with a huge 11.243 margin.
This means all the four master-class contenders have taken win.
