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Kotaro Shimbara takes maiden SFL win with light-to-flag victory
Kotaro Shimbara（HFDP WITH B-MAX RACING）
Following four practice sessions held under changeable weather with rain, sunshine and then rain again the Japanese Super Formula Lights’ Autopolis event entered its third day for qualifyings for Rd 4 and Rd 5, and Rd 4 race.
The track was still wet in the early morning but dried out during a Super Formula’s FP, and the qualifying for Rd 4 got underway for 10 minutes at 11:25am under completely dry conditions.
Having been unable to run a lot on Thursday and Friday due to his crash in FP1 Kotaro Shimbara in HFDP WITH B-MAX RACING secured his first-ever pole position with 1m37.280.
Evan Giltaire (ART Grand Prix with B-MAX), who had topped the times in FP4, qualified second with 1m37.554.
Rintaro Sato (B-MAX ENGINEERING 324) and Yusuke Mitsui (DELiGHTWORKS) set the same time of 1m37.609 but Sato claimed third place on the grid, his best qualifying result, as he did it first.
Start of Round.4■Mitsui moves up to second place at the start
As the lights went out at 4:05pm under cloudy skies after the Super Formula‘s qualifying Shimbara got away cleanly from pole, while Giltaire got a sluggish start, allowing Mitsui to move up to second. Giltaire, however, managed to hold off a challenge from Sato for third through Turn one.
Behind them fierce battles were unfolding among a TOM'S trio of Oscar Wurz (PONOS RACING TOM'S TGR-DC SF), Kiyoshi Umegaki (Mobility Chukyo TOM’S TGR-DC SFL) and Akshay Bohra (PONOS RACING TOM'S TGR-DC SF), an eighth qualifier and now in seventh, and Kazuhisa Urabe (DELiGHTWORKS).
At the end of the opening lap came Shimbara first with Mitsui in second and Giltaire in third.
On lap two, the field somewhat settled down, with Shimbara extending his lead to 1.5secs and leaving Mitsui, Giltaire and Sato to bunch up.
A gap between Mitsui and Giltaire briefly reduced midway through the race, which opened up Giltaire’s advantage over Sato to around 2.3secs.
Yusuke Mitsui（DELiGHTWORKS）■Master class sees an unexpected drama on the final lap
Closing stages saw close battles fought between Mitsui and Giltaire with the other among Sato, Wurz and Umegaki a little behind, only to see no passes till the end, ending with Shimbara taking his maiden SFL victory with 1.689secs margin.
Mitsui and Giltaire rounded out the podium. Battles over fourth place saw no changes in position, either, as Sato took fourth ahead of Wurz in fifth and Umegaki in Sixth.
Meanwhile in master class, DRAGON (B-MAX ENGINEERING 24) showed strong determination to retain his lead for almost the entire laps over Yasuhiro Shimizu (ART TASTE RACING) and a closely following Ken Alex (BUZZ RACING).
A failure that hit DRAGON, however, forced him to end his race on the very final lap, and Shimizu took the chequered flag as a result.
