Super Formula may have entered a new era on track with the new SF23 car this year, but behind the scenes there has been another change at least as significant when it comes to determining the future direction of the series.
Masahiko Kondo - best known to motorsport fans as the boss of Kondo Racing and a moderately successful driver in his own right, to the rest of Japan as the pop star ‘Matchy’ - has taken over as chairman of Super Formula organiser Japan Race Promotion (JRP). He replaces Japanese F1 pioneer Satoru Nakajima, who had been in the role since 2004.
Kondo inherits the position at a time when Super Formula is not in the rudest of health, despite the successful transition to a new car for 2023 and the expansion of the grid to 22 cars. The series is almost entirely dependent on generous backing from engine suppliers Toyota and Honda, without whom it’s hard to see how the series could survive in its current form as the pinnacle of formula racing on the Asian continent.
As previously discussed here, Super Formula was damaged by the COVID-19 pandemic in a way that its fellow top-tier Japanese championship SUPER GT wasn’t. Foreign drivers were no longer able to come to Japan, and the races were shortened from 250km to 180km with refuelling scrapped (an initially temporary measure that now looks more or less permanent).
Immediately before the pandemic in 2019, approximately 207,000 fans visited Super Formula races, the highest figure since the 2008 financial crisis, boosted by the likes of Stoffel Vandoorne and Pierre Gasly using the series as a stepping stone to Formula 1.
That figure collapsed to 62,000 in 2020 amid tight restrictions on spectator numbers, but it has hardly rebounded since: in 2021, only 80,000 fans showed up, and last year, despite all restrictions having long since been lifted, the number barely edged up to 100,000.
In other words, Super Formula has lost over half its live, paying audience as a result of COVID. SUPER GT also suffered a drop, but was starting from a much higher base - 410,000 fans attended the Japanese sportscar series’ races in 2019, with 297,000 doing so last year. While both series have lost out, SUPER GT attracted almost three times as many fans last year.
It’s a far cry from the golden years of All-Japan Formula 2 and Formula 3000 in the 1980s and the early part of the 1990s, when motorsport as a whole experienced a boom in Japan.
“I saw a video from decades ago, of the F2/F3000 era,” said Kondo in his first press conference as JRP chairman at this month’s Fuji season opener. “The stands at Suzuka and Fuji were full in those videos. There were about as many people as there were last year for F1. It was a dream in terms of the number of spectators.
“I want to recreate that. To have full grandstands for Super Formula races is my dream for the time being. I think it’s a dream that can be realised. But in order for that to be possible, we can’t just ‘keep trying’ [as a promoter]. We need help from the drivers and teams.”
Asked why he felt Japanese formula racing had seen such a dramatic slump in popularity since he started racing professionally in the late 1980s, Kondo replied: “At that time, people in Japan were not used to seeing formula car racing. The speed and the sound were something new and exciting.
“Now, however, it has become the norm. And F1 has come along, and after hearing that explosive sound, I think that if you watch Super Formula, you will find it a bit lacking.”
But perhaps the issue that best sums up Super Formula’s current malaise is this observation from Kondo: “Right now, there are no true star drivers. I think that is what it comes down to.
“There are a lot of drivers who are doing amazing things on the race track, but turning them into stars is our responsibility [as the promoter]. It’s our job to get people to watch them. If we can create star drivers, then the popularity of the championship will surely increase.”
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Kondo’s viewpoint is refreshing, recognising the scale of the issue. But just how do you turn the likes of Tomoki Nojiri or Ryo Hirakawa into stars with similar name recognition to Japanese baseball hero Shohei Ohtani, or women’s tennis icon Naomi Osaka?
“If you look at the WBC [World Baseball Classic] or [FIFA] World Cup, you see the players doing a lot of ‘fan service’,” opines Kondo, referring to baseball and soccer players spending time before and after matches taking pictures with fans, signing autographs, and throwing balls into the stands. “Compared with that, Super Formula drivers are lacking.
“Drivers are always wearing their helmets during races, so it’s a shame you can’t see their real facial expressions at the time they are giving it their all. But when they are not wearing the helmet, I want them to do thorough fan service.
“The power of social media is also amazing. The drivers who are putting in a big effort into social media are popular. But drivers like Kenta [Yamashita], who don’t use it that much, their popularity will steadily decline. I have already asked the team owners to ask their drivers to actively use social media to promote themselves. If they do that, the fans will follow.”
As a driver-focused series, Super Formula’s popularity is always likely to wax and wane according to who is participating at any one time. Having more international drivers on the grid after the COVID-enforced drought can only be a good thing, as the interest in Liam Lawson’s immediate success in Japan shows. But the trouble is they tend to come and go rather too quickly.
Naturally, Vandoorne and Gasly were never likely to stick around in Japan for more than a year, and the same can be said of Lawson, regardless of whether his mission to race in F1 is successful. But even other examples like Alex Palou, Sacha Fenestraz, Nick Cassidy and Tatiana Calderon all jumped as soon as either IndyCar or Formula E came calling.
What Super Formula really needs is a home-grown star who really captures the imagination of the Japanese public. Kondo cites the example of golfer Ryo Ishikawa, who captured the heart of a nation when as a 15-year-old amateur he won the KSB Cup in 2007.
While he admits there is an element of “luck” involved in whether a driver becomes a star, he feels the team themselves need to do more to build up their drivers as personalities.
“I think [creating stars] is down to expressions of individuality and personality,” says Kondo. “I think it would be good to have drivers who are fast and are able to say slightly cocky things. That’s what a star is, after all. We have to lay the foundation for that.
“I also feel the team owners don’t have too much desire to turn their drivers into stars. Instead of just letting them drive, if we can convince the team owners to polish these drivers and to try and turn them into stars, then we will have a higher possibility to have more star drivers in the future.
“Instead of cheering for the ‘blue car’ or the ‘white car’, I want a series where people cheer for their favourite driver by name, like Nojiri or Yamashita.”
By appointing Kondo, who, when all is said and done, is an entertainer, JRP has taken a step in the right direction. Its recently-struck deal to show this year’s races on the free-to-view online TV channel ABEMA is also significant, with the Fuji opener said to have attracted 130,000 viewers.
Given the channel’s target demographic, it must be assumed a large proportion of that figure will be first-time viewers. It will be interesting to see how many of them stick around, or even feel compelled to attend a race in person.
The attendance figures for the Fuji double-header earlier this month were up from last year, with 27,000 fans visiting across the two days instead of 21,000 from last year. But Kondo’s dreams of replicating the full grandstands of yesteryear are still a long, long way from becoming reality.
