Photo: Formula Regional Japanese Championship
A double win at Okayama was the latest part of Sena Sakaguchi’s domination of Formula Regional Japanese Championship’s inaugural seaon, and leaves little to be done in the title decider.
The Sutekina Racing Team driver took pole for both races, and had to defend straight away in the first one from title rival Yuga Futurani. As they got to the first corner it all went wrong for Furutani though and he dropped to fourth, all but guaranteeing Sakaguchi victory.
It took a few laps for him to get back up to second place, by which point it was too late to rival Sakaguchi and he took his eighth win from eight starts.
Furutani didn’t lose places at Turn 1 at the start of race two, but he had even less of an answer to Sakaguchi’s pace and set-up tweaks between the two races enabled the leader to have a faster car and he won by 5.142s. There’s now 38 points between the pair at the top of the standings, with 50 available in next month’s season finale.
Sakaguchi’s team-mate Mizuki Ishizaka completed the podium in both races, finishing 17.687s behind in race one and 26.061s back in race two.
Results
Race 1 (17 laps)
1 Sena Sakaguchi Sutekina Racing Team 24m54.570s
2 Yuga Furutani TOM’S +2.952s
3 Mizuki Ishizaka Sutekina Racing Team +17.687s
4 Ai Miura Super License +20.078s
5 Takashi Hata Super Licence +49.478s
6 Masayuki Ueda Rn-sports +53.916s
7 DRAGON B-MAX Racing +1m08.739s
8 Syuji B-MAX Racing +1 lap
9 Nobuhiro Imada Eagle Sports +1 lap
Pole: Sakaguchi, 1m26.499s
Fastest lap: Furutani, 1m26.875s
Race 2 (20 laps)
1 Sakaguchi 29m03.431s
2 Furutani +5.142s
3 Ishizaka +26.061s
4 Miura +29.664s
5 DRAGON +59.573s
6 Hata +1m03.302s
7 Ueda +1m14.634s
8 Imada +1m17.241s
9 Syuji +1m19.587s
P: Sakaguchi, 1m25.897s
FL: Sakaguchi, 1m26.638s
Championship standings
1 Sakaguchi 225 2 Furutani 187 3 Tomoki Takahashi 139 4 Ueda 79 5 Imada 77 6 DRAGON 76 7 Yuki Nemoto 58 8 Yu Kanamaru 45 9 Takuro Shihohara 43 10 Syuji 41