Photo: Super Formula Lights
TOM’S has named two more drivers in its Super Formula Lights line-up for 2023, with Yuga Furutani and Enzo Trulli being its third and fourth signings for the season.
Trulli, son of Formula 1 grand prix winner Jarno, is going into his third season of single-seater racing and has already spent the first two competing at the Formula 3 level.
After winning the Formula 4 United Arab Emirates title in his first car racing campaign at the start of 2021, Trulli then stepped up to Euroformula which uses the same F3-inspired Dallara 320 car as SF Lights does.
He picked up one podium in the first half of the season with Drivex School, then switched to Carlin and picked up three more to come seventh in the standings. Trulli was then set for a second season there with the Motopark team, but instead ended up racing in the FIA F3 Championship with Carlin where he was 34th in the standings with no points finishes.
During the off-season he returned to the Dallara 320, testing with Motopark in Spain and with TOM’S in Japan.
“I was really happy when I heard that I would be able to sign a contract with TOM’S after the test at Fuji Speedway,” said Trulli.
“It was my first visit to Japan, and there was a lot of confusion, but the engineers and staff at TOM’S were all professional, so I was able to concentrate on testing once I got inside the cockpit.
“It’s my first time in the country, the circuit, and the machine, so there are a lot of things I have to learn, but I’ll do everything I can with all my might, and with TOM’S, together with Toyota, which my father is proud of, I’ll start with the [ladder of the] Super Formula Championship. I’m aiming for my first victory in the Lights championship.”
Furutani meanwhile is going into his second SF Lights campaign with TOM’S, having claimed five podiums en route to sixth in the standings in 2022.
He has been part of TOM’S since 2020, when he raced for its Youth-branded squad in Japanese F4 and Formula Regional Japanese Championship. Furutani was 16th in the former, only scoring twice, and second in the later. His rookie FRJC campaign included eight second-place finishes and three third places, and only three races where he was off the podium.
That year he also picked up two pole positions in FRJC, and added to that on his return in 2021 with four wins, three poles, seven fastest laps, 10 podiums and the title by a handy margin of 61 points.
When he was promoted to SF Lights last season it meant TOM’S ran four cars thre for the first time since 2008, when the series was known as Japanese Formula 3, and the first time all four of those cars had been in the top class since 2004.
This year it will do the same, as Furutani and Trulli join the already announced Toyota juniors Seita Nonaka and Hibiki Taira, who are going into their third SF Lights seasons.