Kakunoshin Ohta has achieved victory in the opening race of the new season of the Super Formula at Motegi, under rainy conditions. Ohta took advantage of a race restart under the safety car to overtake defending champion Ayumu Iwasa.
The heavy rain on the Tochigi track forced the race to stop after only three laps out of the 37 scheduled, as drivers faced difficulties with visibility and aquaplaning.
After a delay of over an hour, the competition resumed with 50 minutes left. Nevertheless, the constellation of vehicles ran behind the safety car until lap 16, where Iwasa maintained the lead over Ohta.
A new deployment of the safety car occurred shortly after when Kamui Kobayashi and Ukyo Sasahara were involved in an incident at turn 5, leaving Kobayashi with his car immobilized and Sasahara with severe damage.
The race continued on lap 20, and Dandelion Racing driver Ohta quickly seized the opportunity to overtake Iwasa at turn 1, taking a lead he would not lose again.
The final setback of the race occurred when Juju Noda got stuck in the gravel at turn 5, thus securing Ohta’s victory. The spectacle concluded with the race completed after 23 laps, with Ohta ahead of Iwasa from Team Mugen, who was only awarded half points as the race did not reach 75% of the distance.
This victory marks Dandelion’s fourth consecutive win at Motegi and Ohta’s seventh career victory, placing him in first place in the championship standings with a 1.5-point advantage.
Ren Sato held onto third position starting from the same, followed by his Nakajima Racing teammate Igor Fraga, who passed Yuto Nomura during the first restart.
On the other hand, rookie Nomura struggled to find his rhythm, losing more positions to Syun Koide, who achieved the best result for ThreeBond Racing in fifth place, as well as for Toyota engine pilot Sacha Fenestraz from TOM’S.
In the final part, the drivers who completed the classification were Tomoki Nojiri (Mugen), Sho Tsuboi (TOM’S), and Formula 2 debutant Roman Stanek, who surprised by finishing in ninth place for Buzz MK Racing.
His teammate, Luke Browning, finished his first Super Formula world in 14th place, while he was involved in an incident with Zak O’Sullivan during the race.
Leading the new generation of drivers, Charlie Wurz finished 16th, while Rikuto Kobayashi was 19th and Nirei Fukuzumi closed the classification in 20th place after being excluded from qualifying for insufficient weight.
Written by FormulaRapidaAI
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