Fuji Super Formula: Nojiri wins Race 2, Lawson penalised

At the start of the race, polesitter Nojiri immediately moved to the right to cover off a fast-charging Toshiki Oyu, who had made a blistering start from third on the grid to pass Ritomo Miyata for second.

While Nojiri managed to initially hold off Oyu, the TGM driver was the quicker of the two and went around the outside of the double champion into Coca-Cola corner to take the lead.

The status quo was maintained when the safety car was called in on lap 8 to recover the stranded TOM’S car of Giuliano Alesi, who had been pitched into a spin by Kakunoshin Ota at the exit of Turn 1.

When the pit window opened at the end of lap 10, the entire field - except a penalised Ryo Hirakawa - stopped for their mandatory tyre change, turning the race into a battle of the pit mechanics.

This is where Nojiri regained lost ground, as the TGM mechanics had to wait for him to pass before releasing Oyu into the fast lane.

Oyu tried hard to retake the lead when the race resumed on lap 13, but the 24-year-old ended up locking up into Turn 1 and allowed Nojiri to hold his position at the front.

From there on, the double champion faced no issues out front, clinching his ninth career Super Formula victory by 1.6 seconds and moving into the lead of the drivers' standings as a result.

Meanwhile, Oyu struggled for performance in the second stint and had to come into the pits for a second time with what appeared to be a slow puncture, slipping to 20th and last among the finishers.

Oyu’s first-to-last slump promoted Sho Tsuboi to second, the Inging driver returning to the podium for the first time since last year’s second race at Fuji.

Saturday winner Lawson finished third on the road ahead of Kenta Yamashita and Miyata, but a five-second time penalty for not respecting the safety car procedure dropped him to fifth place.

This appeared to be due to Lawson holding up the cars behind in order to give his Mugen mechanics time to service both he and Nojiri without losing time, with Inging's Sena Sakaguchi being punished for a similar offence.

Lawson's penalty promoted Kondo Racing’s Yamashita to the final spot on the podium, his first top-three result in Super Formula since the Motegi season opener in 2020.

Kamui Kobayashi also enjoyed a strong result for KCMG in sixth behind the penalised Lawson, while Nirei Fukuzumi secured the best-ever finish for the refreshed ThreeBond (formerly Drago Corse) team in seventh.

Sakaguchi was eighth on the road but slipped to 10th with his penalty behind Tadasuke Makino (Dandelion) and Ren Sato (Nakajima).

Hirakawa endured a heartbreaking race, with a loose wheel ending his run with two laps to go.

The Impul ace had already been hit with a 10-second time penalty for a start procedure infringement, which he served on lap 7.

In a bid to try something different from the competition, he stayed out on track when the remainder of the field pitted under the safety car at the end of lap 10, which put him in the lead before his stop.

A points finish was looking unlikely however even before the issue that put him out of the race.

Fuji Super Formula - race results:

Cla	#	Driver	Team	Laps	Gap
1	1	Tomoki Nojiri	Team Mugen	41
2	38	Sho Tsuboi	JMS P.mu/cerumo-INGING	41	1.643
3	3	Kenta Yamashita	Kondo Racing	41	3.103
4	37	Ritomo Miyata	Vantelin Team TOM'S	41	3.693
5	15	Liam Lawson	Team Mugen	41	6.926
6	7	Kamui Kobayashi	Team KCMG	41	9.175
7	12	Nirei Fukuzumi	ThreeBond Racing	41	15.386
8	5	Tadasuke Makino	Dandelion Racing	41	20.089
9	65	Ren Sato	TCS Nakajima Racing	41	20.236
10	39	Sena Sakaguchi	JMS P.mu/cerumo-INGING	41	22.154
11	14	Kazuya Oshima	docomo business ROOKIE	41	23.407
12	50	Nobuharu Matsushita	B-Max Racing Team	41	27.037
13	19	Yuhi Sekiguchi	ITOCHU ENEX TEAM IMPUL	41	27.864
14	4	Kazuto Kotaka	Kondo Racing	41	30.724
15	64	Naoki Yamamoto	TCS Nakajima Racing	41	34.742
16	18	Yuji Kunimoto	Team KCMG	41	35.357
17	55	Cem Bolukbasi	TGM Grand Prix	41	35.414
18	51	Raoul Hyman	B-Max Racing Team	41	50.709
19	6	Kakunoshin Ota	Dandelion Racing	41	53.975
20	53	Toshiki Oyu	TGM Grand Prix	41	56.562
	20	Ryo Hirakawa	ITOCHU ENEX TEAM IMPUL	39	2 Laps
	36	Giuliano Alesi	Vantelin Team TOM'S	7	34 Laps
View full results