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Nomura fends of Sano to notch up his seventh straight win
Yuto Nomura（HFDP WITH B-MAX RACING）
The final race of Japanese Super Formula Lights championship Sugo event got underway three hours after Rd 12.
The Rd 6 was postponed to this weekend due to bad weather during Autopolis event in May.
According to the finishing order of Rd 11 Yuto Nomura (driving HFDP WITH B-MAX RACING) – who has been on a winning streak of six races - claimed pole position with Yuki Sano in Mobility Chukyo TOM’S TGR-DC SFL as a fellow front row starter.
The front row was secured by Yuga Furutani (Deloitte. HTP TOM'S SFL) and Rikuto Kobayashi (in Mobility Chukyo TOM’S TGR-DC SFL).
The third row was shared by Yusuke Mitsui (DELiGHTWORKS) and Kazuhisa Urabe (B-MAX RACING 324) who made contact in Rd 12.
Start of Round.6■Nomura and Sano got away strongly off the line
During reconnaissance lap rain started to fall a bit harder than in the early morning, but it still didn’t wet the track, and all the 13 cars came out on slicks.
As the lights went out at 11:20am with temperatures at 26C Sano got a strong getaway, diving down the inside of Nomura into Turn one, but Nomura firmly defended, coming out of Turn one at the front ahead of Sano, Furuya and Mitsui who had made one place.
Having started seventh Kaylen Frederick (Pilot ONE Racing with B-MAX) slightly went off into the gravel at the S-shape turn, dropping to 10th.
A couple of laps later the race once again took on the appearance of a duel between Nomura and Sano as seen in the previous three races when Furutani in third began to drop off the pace of the lead pair on lap four.
Having come into Rd 6 with determination to improve his early pace, Sano closely tailed Nomura, keeping the gap within a second.
Yuto Nomura（HFDP WITH B-MAX RACING）
■Sano retains second spot despite penalty
Furutani was running around four seconds back from Nomura and Sano, with Mitsui following another six to seven seconds behind when Sano was given a five-second time penalty on lap six for his jump start, which would affect orders of the front-runners.
Sano continued to push, trying to at least take lead to reduce the impact of the penalty, while both Furutani and Mitsui focused to get the gap to Sano down to less than five seconds to improve their positions, even though the DELiGHTWORKS driver came under mounting pressure from Kobayashi behind.
As the race neared lap 10 Sano was able to reduce the gap to Nomura to 0.5 to 0.4secs, leaving Furutani over five seconds behind. Mitsui was left to engage in a close battle with Kobayashi.
Despite Sano’s relentless charge Nomura held on for his seventh straight win, a great achievement of completing all the four Sugo races with lights-to-flag results.
Sano finished second for the fourth races in a row. Furutani rounded out the podium. Mitsui fended off Kobayashi to place fourth. Urabe was sixth.
In master class Nobuhiro Imada (JMS RACING with B-MAX) crossed the line 4.737secs of Yasuhiro Shimizu (GNSY RACING 324), taking a convincing fourth consecutive win. DRAGON (TEAM DRAGON 324) finished a close third.
Yuga Furutani（Deloitte. HTP TOM'S SFL）
