Photo: Japanese F3 Association
Sacha Fenestraz extended his Japanese Formula 3 lead at Fuji after a brilliant drive in the wet, while?team-mate Enaam Ahmed was given his maiden series win.
B-MAX Racing with Motopark’s Fenestraz was on form throughout the weekend in the wet conditions, and just missed out on pole position to TOM’S Ritomo Miyata during a dry qualifying session.
The Franco-Argentinian was able to take the lead of race one after an early safety car period – taking the inside line on the main straight as he went three-wide with Miyata and Hiroki Otsu – and was able to stay out front.
However the stewards found that he had passed Miyata just before the start/finish line and he was given a drive-through penalty with two laps to go in the 15-lap race.
Miyata won the race on the road ahead of Fenestraz’s team-mate Ahmed, but a post-race protest lodged against Miyata’s car ended in the TOM’S driver being disqualified for a technical infringement. This promoted Ahmed to first place, with Otsu and Toshiki Oyu completing the podium.
Earlier in the week, Miyata was also disqualified from the results of the second race at the previous round at Sportsland SUGO, again due to a technical infringement.
With the weather deteriorating on Sunday for the second race of the weekend, Fenestraz was able to get by Miyata to take the lead of the race before the first corner.
Over the 21 laps he was able to put in an unbeatable performance, often setting fast laps before eventually taking the chequered flag nearly 20 seconds ahead of Ahmed, who had passed Miyata in the second half of the race.
Fenestraz heads into the second Sportsland SUGO round in two weeks time with a 34-point cushion to Miyata in the standings, while another two pointless finishes for Ameya Vaidyanathan puts him out of title contention.
Neither Charles Milesi (Okayama Team) or Tairoku Yamaguchi (Tairoku Racing) competed at Fuji, while ThreeBond Racing’s Ai Miura withdrew from the second race after she was involved in an accident early on in race one.
Results round-up
Race 1 (15 laps)
1 Enaam Ahmed B-MAX Racing with Motopark 30m01.539s
2 Hiroki Otsu ThreeBond Racing +4.478s
3 Toshiki Oyu Toda Racing +5.693s
4 Kazuto Kotaka TOM’S +9.669s
5 Yoshiaki Katayama Okayama Team +10.211s
6 Shunsuke Kohno RS Fine +11.699s
7 Sacha Fenestraz B-MAX Racing with Motopark +24.543s
8 Hiroki Kokuzawa Hanashima Racing +31.478s
9 Ameya Vaidyanathan B-MAX Racing with Motopark +1m25.388s
10 DRAGON B-MAX Racing with Motopark +1m41.763s
Pole: Miyata, 1m33.507s
Fastest lap: Ahmed, 1m39.137s
Race 2 (21 laps)
1 Fenestraz 39m51.283s
2 Ahmed +19.706s
3 Ritomo Miyata TOM?S +21.406s
4 Otsu +48.349s
5 Kotaka +52.610s
6 Oyu +53.298s
7 Katayama +1m01.993s
8 Vaidyanathan +1m06.116s
9 DRAGON +1m46.775s
Ret Kohno
P: Miyata, 1m33.548s
FL: Fenestraz, 1m53.093s
Championship standings
1 Fenestraz 97? ?2 Miyata 63? ?3 Oyu 47? ?4 Ahmed 46? ?5?Katayama 27? ?6 Kotaka 27? ?7 Otsu 24? ?8 Sena Sakaguchi 10? ?9 Kohno 8? ?10 Charles Milesi 8