Photo: Super Formula Lights
Dense fog disrupted round two of Super Formula Lights’ season at Autopolis, which Yuko Sano left as points leader.
Practice proceeded without issue on Thursday and Friday, but then the fog led to qualifying and race one on Saturday being cancelled due to minimal visiblity.
Race one was moved to Sunday morning, at the expense of race three being dropped. The results from FP5 were used for race one’s grid.
Kaylen Frederick was fastest in FP1, a 1m38.224s putting him 0.199 seconds ahead of Yuto Nomura. Zachary David completed a B-MAX Racing 1-2-3, but was 0.918s behind. TOM’s duo Sano and Esteban Masson were the only others within a second of Frederick.
David set a 1m38.301s to top FP2 by 0.184s over Nomura and Sano. Rikuto Kobayashi (TOM’S) was fourth, 0.233s behind.
FP3 on Friday was much faster, and Frederick lowered the pace to 1m37.453s. He was 0.527s faster than Nomura, who had a 0.066s gap to Yuga Furutani (TOM’S).
The next session was much slower, with a 1m38.834s enough to earn Furutani top spot. He edged Sano by 0.003s and TOM’S debutant Esteban Masson.
Nomura went second fastest overall in practice with a session-topping 1m37.93s in FP5. That earned him race one pole, with Sano joining him on the front row. Just 0.019s split Frederick, Masson and Furutani behind.
The track was moist for the race, and Nomura paid the price of reaching his grid spot early and his tyres cooling down as he waited for others to line up. He spun his rear wheels off the line and was passed by Sano and Frederick, and from there the race was won.
Sano was two seconds clear by lap three, and had a 13.32s gap when the chequered flag waved after 21 laps.
Masson got onto Nomura’s tail on lap nine and tried passing around the outside of turn one next time by. Nomura got very defensive, leading to contact and a five-second penalty.
That moment helped Frederick pull away from them in the race’s second half, and while Nomura resisted Masson to the end there was a train of cars quite close by the penultimate lap and his penalty dropped him to eighth.
After the opening lap, the only pass was Yasuhiro Shimizu overtaking B-MAX team-mate and boss “Dragon” on lap 16 when he locked up at turn one. Having pressured him for a long time, he sprinted off after that as the fog became troublesome again.
It was also foggy for race two, which Frederick had pole for ahead of Kobayashi, Nomura, Furtani, Sano and Masson.
Sano made the best start, squeezing between several cars to be second before turn one. Furutani passed Kobayashi and Nomura for third a few corners later, with the latter two squabbling through lap one until Kobayashi established himself as ahead.
Frederick cruised to victory, Furutani pressured Sano late on and Nomura got another five-second penalty while defending against Masson so finished seventh. After a terrible lap one, David recovered to 10th.
Results round-up
Race 1 (21 laps)
1 Yuki Sano TOM’S 35m33.037s
2 Kaylen Frederick B-MAX Racing +13.320s
3 Esteban Masson TOM’S +15.872s
4 Yuga Furutani TOM’S +17.615s
5 Zachary David B-MAX Racing +18.621s
6 Rikuto Kobayashi TOM’S +19.194s
7 Yusuke Mitsui Delightworks Racing +19.862s
8 Yuto Nomura B-MAX Racing +20.458s
9 Kazuhisa Urabe B-MAX racing +27.539s
10 Yugo Iwasawa Delightworks Racing +28.253s
Pole: Nomura, 1m37.930s.
Fastest lap: Sano, 1m40.160s
Race 2 (14 laps)
1 Frederick 23m29.709s
2 Sano +8.862s
3 Furutani +9.506s
4 Kobayashi +10.662s
5 Masson +20.670s
6 Mitsui +23.909s
7 Nomura +25.080s
8 Urabe +26.526s
9 Reimei Ito LM Corsa +29.628s
10 David +35.267s
P: Frederick,
FL: Frederick, 1m39.928s
Championship standings
1 Sano 49 2 Frederick 25 3 Nomura 22 4 Kobayashi 14 5 Furutani 11 6 David 8 7 Masson 7 8 Mitsui 4 9 Urabe 3 10 Ito 1