Tatiana Calderon and Juri Vips have been confirmed to compete in Super Formula in 2020 as Honda revealed its line-up for the new season.
Calderon is a surprise name to join Super Formula as she became the first female in the re-branded championship and the first in nearly two decades. She has been named as the driver for the new Threebond Drago Corse outfit by Honda in the #12 car.
Among other names, Red Bull Junior Team’s Vips will race for Team Mugen in the #15 car alongside Tomoki Nojiri in #16, as 2020 runner-up Noaki Yamamoto will continue with Dandelion Racing in the #5 alongside Nirei Fukuzumi in #6.
As known, Pietro Fittipaldi will race with B-Max Racing with Motopark in the #50 car as he will be joined by Charles Milesi in the #51. TCS Nakajima Racing has a change as Toshiki Oyu joins Tadasuke Makino for his debut Super Formula season.
Makino will be in the #64 car with Oyu in #65. Only Real Racing is left to announce its sole driver as Honda also revealed its Super GT line-up which sees some changes after the departure of Jenson Button and Narain Karthikeyan from the GT500 class.
The seat left by Button has been taken up by Makino, who was Karthikeyan’s partner at Nakajima Racing. The youngster joins Team Kunimitsu alongside Yamamoto in the #100 Honda NSX-GT machine. The latter stays in Japan as a F1 role seems unlikely.
Real Racing is the only team to retain the same drivers. It will field Koudai Tsukakoshi and Bertrand Baguette in the #17 car as the #8 ARTA has Fukuzumi stepping up from GT300 to partner Nojiri as his 2019 teammate Takuya Izawa has joined Nakajima Racing.
He has Hiroki Otsu as his teammate in the #64 car. And finally, Team Mugen will field the 2019 F3 Asia champion Ukyo Sasahara in the #16 as he will join Hideki Mutoh. The GT300 category has some changes to after couple of promotions made by Honda.
The three-car Honda team line-up for the 2020 season goes as: #18 Team UpGararage – Takashi Kobayashi & Kosuke Matsuura, #34 Drago Corse – Ryo Michigami & Jake Parsons, #55 ARTA – Shinichi Takagi & Toshiki Oyu.
In addition, here’s the 2020 Super GT line-up of Nissan:
Here’s changes to Super Formula in 2020
Here’s Pietro Fittipaldi on seeking larger role with Haas