TOPICS
Kaylen Frederick holds on for his first win of the season
Kaylen Frederick（Pilot ONE Racing with B-MAX）
Rd 5 of the Japanese Super Formula Lights championship got underway for 14 laps at 0:15pm on Sunday three hours after Rd 4 that started at 8:30am. It was still cloudy at Autopolis, but the fog was clearing and the track dried out.
It was Kaylen Frederick in Pilot ONE Racing with B-MAX who claimed pole position for the race determined by the second-best times of each driver from Friday’s free practice 5, with Rikuto Kobayashi (Mobility Chukyo TOM’S TGR-DC SFL) as fellow front-row starter.
The second row was secured by Yuto Nomura (HFDP WITH B-MAX RACING) – who had finished with a disappointing result in Rd 4 – and Yuga Furutani (Deloitte. HTP TOM'S SFL).
Start of Round.5■Sano jumps up to second at the start
At the start of the race Yugo Iwasawa stalled his DELiGHTWORKS in 10th place, and Zach David (B-MAX RACING 324) went off the track on the run to Turn one.
Up front, Frederick got a holeshot, while Kobayashi fell down the order. The Rd 4 winner Yuki Sano (Mobility Chukyo TOM’S TGR-DC SFL) jumped up to second ahead of Furutani, Kobayashi and Nomura.
Like Sano had done in Rd 4 Frederick took advantage of fresh rubber saved for the race to immediately set about building up a gap, leaving Sano on used tires to deal with closely chasing Furutani and Kobayashi, both on fresh tires.
Behind them came Nomura, closely followed by Esteban Masson (PONOS Racing TOM’S TGR-DC SFL), Yusuke Mitsui (DELiGHTWORKS) and Kazuhisa Urabe (B-MAX RACING 324). The pack fighting for fifth was then narrowed down to two cars when Nomura and Masson broke away. However, Nomura would be given a five-second time penalty for his jump start.
Yuki Sano（MOBILITY CHUKYO TOM'S TGR-DC SFL）
■Master class won by Imada
With no further significant changes in positions of the leaders in the shorter race than Rd 4 Frederick clinched his first win of the season with 8.863secs advantage over Sano, ending the TOM’S driver’s winning streak at four.
However, it was a TOM’S dominant race, indeed, where the team occupied second through fifth places; Furutani took his first podium finish of the season in third after a close battle with his team-mate Kobayashi; Masson finished fifth.
Nomura narrowly missed out on a points finish in seventh behind Mitsui.
Nobuhiro Imada (JMS RACING TEAM) retained his master class lead at the start ahead of Yasuhiro Shimizu (GNSY RACING 324) and DRAGON (TEAM DRAGON 324). Shimizu challenged Imada once, only to spin, and DRAGON seized the chance to make one place.
DRAGON mounted a furious charge on lap four on his fresh rubber saved for the race, but Imada held out for a master class win, ending Shimizu’s winning streak at four.
Yuga Furutani（Deloitte. HTP TOM'S SFL）
