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Nomura holds off charging Masson to take back-to-back wins
Yuto Nomura and Team membersThe Japanese Super Formula Lights’ Oayama weekend went into its final day for Rd8 and Rd9 races on Sunday.
Yuto Nomura driving HFDP WITH B-MAX RACING kept up his strong pace to take pole position again with a time of 1m21.961secs in the qualifying for Rd8 that started at 9:20am on Saturday.
Apart from Nomura the qualifying results were quite different from those for Rd 7 as Yusuke Mitsui (DELiGHTWORKS) claimed second, his best grid position in SFL, and the second row was secured by a TOM’S pair of Esteban Masson (PONOS Racing TOM’S TGR-DC SFL) and Rikuto Kobayashi (in Mobility Chukyo TOM’S TGR-DC SFL). Zach David (B-MAX RACING 324) was fifth and Yuki Sano (Mobility Chukyo TOM’S TGR-DC SFL) was sixth.
Start of Round.8■Masson and Kobayashi improve some places at the start
Due to an overtime of Porche Sprint Challenge Japan the race started 10 minutes later at 9:55am under cloudy skies but hot and humid conditions.
Nomura got a good start from pole position, while Mitsui got wheelspin, allowing Masson to get ahead of him. The DELiGHTWORKS driver lost another position to Kobayashi, but managed to defend a distant fourth spot from Sano.
Masson tried to keep up with Nomura, only to see the gap widen to 1.124secs at the end of lap five despite on fresh tires.
In the middle of the race Kobayashi, Mitsui and Sano began to lag behind the lead two, and a little further back, a pack with David heading Yuga Furutani (Deloitte. HTP TOM'S SFL), Kaylen Frederick (Pilot ONE Racing with B-MAX), Kazuhisa Urabe (B-MAX RACING 324) and Reimei Ito (LMcorsa OTG 320) had close battles over sixth position.
Yuto Nomura（HFDP WITH B-MAX RACING）
■A fierce battle fought between two master-class cars
As the race passed the halfway point with no changes in positions of race leaders Masson finally was able to make good use of his fresh rubber to whittle the gap to Nomura, which became less than a second on lap 12.
In the closing stages, however, Nomura pulled away again to open up his margin, ending up 2.465secs ahead of Masson at the line. Masson took his first podium finish since Rd 4. Kobayashi placed third.
Mitsui fended off a pressure from Nomura to finish fourth. David won a close battle with Frederick to take the final point on offer.
In master class, in the meanwhile, Yasuhiro Shimizu (GNSY RACING 324) nailed his start this time, but DRAGON (TEAM DRAGON 324) got ahead of Shimizu with even better start, the two engaging in a fierce battle as they had done in Rd 7.
From lap 10 onwards, Shimizu mounted a series of challenges, but DRAGON successfully defended his lead each time. However, the two eventually collided at the double-hairpin on lap 16, damaging Shimizu’s suspension and forcing him to stop and retire.
DRAGON was handed an admonishment for the collision instead of a penalty, and took his first win of the season.
