Last weekend’s Super Formula round at Sugo was the first in almost 50 years to feature no international representation. All 20 drivers who lined up on the grid, plus Naoki Yamamoto who couldn't take the start due to a warm-up crash, were of Japanese nationality.
Super Formula/Formula Nippon and its precursors All-Japan Formula 3000 and All-Japan Formula Two went through a number of troughs and crests in the last five decades, but there was always a constant flow of ‘gaijin’ drivers in the country’s premier single-seater championship. So the fact that the Sugo race went ahead with an all-Japanese line-up was nothing short of a travesty for promoter JRP.
