Photo: Super Formula Lights
Super Formula Lights champion Yuto Nomura won all three races in the final round at Twin Ring Motegi.
It was close in the fight for race one pole in qualifying, with B-MAX Racing driver Nomura edging Toyota junior Yuki Sano by 0.012 seconds and his TOM’S team-mate Rikuto Kobayashi by 0.157s.
Nomura grew his advantage with a faster pace in qualifying two, setting a 1m42.597s to clinch race two pole — his eighth of 2025 — by 0.307s over Sano.
Kobayashi was just 0.011s slower than Sano, and Delightworks Racing’s Hiyu Yamakoshi was 0.589s off pole in fourth.
Race one concluded Saturday’s action, and Sano’s victory hopes ended with a bad start. Kobayashi drove straight past him, and Delightworks’ Yusuke Mitsui briefly nosed ahead too before the opening corner.
Sano ensured he got through the corner in third, then mostly had a lonely race as the top four spread out.
Nomura was 1.8s clear, with Sano a further two seconds back, when the safety car came out on lap 10 due to B-MAX’s Nobuhiro Imada spinning off.
Racing resumed with two laps to go, and everyone held their positions. Nomura won by 0.796s, and Kobayashi had a 0.899s gap to Sano.
There was drama at the start of race two, with six drivers failing to complete the opening lap. That led to the safety car leading the field through to lap five, when they were released with Nomura at the front.
Sano had once again lost out to Kobayashi on lap one, and he was mostly able to stick with Nomura. The winner grew his lead to 0.758s on the final lap, and Mitsui finished fourth after having Yamakoshi in his mirrors throughout.
Nomura started on pole again for the season-ending race three, ahead of Kobayashi, Sano, Mitsui and Yamakoshi.
Kobayashi had wheelspin off the line, and Mitsui tried going around his outside at turns one and two. But later in the lap he got baulked and lost out to Sano, with Yamakoshi almost getting past too.
His team-mate then got the job done around the outside through turn 11, and their squabble allowed the top three to break away.
Nomura had a 1.341s gap after one lap, which he maintained en route to his 12th victory of the campaign.
Sano was a lonely third again, as Yamakoshi spent most of the race holding Mitsui off. He edged away in the last few laps, with 0.793s between the two at the finish.
Results round-up
Race 1 (14 laps)
1 Yuto Nomura B-MAX Racing 26m24.636s
2 Rikuto Kobayashi TOM’S +0.796s
3 Yuki Sano TOM’S +1.695s
4 Yusuke Mitsui Delightworks Racing +2.944s
5 Hiyu Yamakoshi Delightworks Racing +3.555s
6 Yuga Furutani TOM’S +4.283s
7 Kazuhisa Urabe B-MAX Racing +5.817s
8 Esteban Masson TOM’S +6.427s
9 Zachary David B-MAX Racing +6.905s
10 Reimei Ito LM Corsa +7.898s
Pole: Nomura, 1m43.135s
Fastest lap: Nomura, 1m43.537s
Race 2 (14 laps)
1 Nomura 29m51.197s
2 Kobayashi +0.758s
3 Sano +2.858s
4 Mitsui +5.300s
5 Yamakoshi +6.406s
6 Masson +10.029s
7 Ito +12.281s
8 “Ken Alex” Buzz Racing +24.803s
9 Nobuhiro Imada B-MAX Racing +29.744s
Ret Keito Matsui B-MAX Racing
P: Nomura, 1m42.597s
FL: Nomura, 1m44.110s
Race 3 (19 laps)
1 Nomura 33m19.957s
2 Kobayashi +0.995s
3 Sano +3.688s
4 Yamakoshi +11.865s
5 Mitsui +12.658s
6 Furutani +24.308s
7 Urabe +26.907s
8 Masson +27.690s
9 Ito +28.803s
10 Yasuhiro Shimizu B-MAX Racing +56.699s
FL: Kobayashi, 1m44.424s
Championship standings
1 Nomura 153 2 Sano 104 3 Kobayashi 85 4 Furutani 36 5 Kaylen Frederick 35 6 Mitsui 32 7 Masson 31 8 David 25 9 Yamakoshi 7 10 Urabe 5