Race report

Super Formula Motegi

Motegi Super Formula: Hirakawa wins, Cassidy takes points lead

Ryo Hirakawa notched up his maiden Super Formula victory at Motegi, as Nick Cassidy finished on the podium to snatch the championship lead from Naoki Yamamoto.

Rachit Thukral

Edited: Aug 19, 2019, 7:16 AM

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Ryo Hirakawa, Impul

When the 51-lap race got underway, Alex Palou led cleanly from pole position and started building a small gap up front, in what appeared to be a repeat of his lights-to-flag victory at Fuji.

However, Hirakawa slowly started cutting into Palou’s advantage and was right on the Nakajima Racing driver’s tail by lap 10.

It took another 13 laps for Hirakawa to pass Palou, the Impul driver sweeping around the outside coming out of the bridge complex to take the lead.

After clearing Palou, Hirakawa disappeared into the distance, taking the chequered flag by 2.972s from second-placed Kamui Kobayashi.

All Super Formula races are streamed live and for free on Motorsport.tv.

Kobayashi got a brilliant launch from seventh on the grid to pass both Tomoki Nojiri and Hiroaki Ishiura into turn 1, and then dispatched Red Bull junior Lucas Auer later on the opening lap to move into fourth.

The KCMG driver reeled in Dandelion’s Nirei Fukuzumi on lap 33 after a long battle, and was able to jump Palou with a later pitstop to finish second.

Cassidy started only 12th on the grid but chose to get rid of his medium tyres as early as lap 4, giving himself maximum track time on the faster soft compound.

That strategy turned to be a masterstroke as he found himself fifth on track after all the pitstops were settled.

On the faster but worn-out soft tyres, Cassidy made light work of Fukuzumi, who ran wide at turn 11 shortly after his pitstop, and then passed Palou with six laps to go to score his third podium of the season.

The result elevates Cassidy to the top of the standings, as Yamamoto was unable to score points in a nightmare race for the reigning champion.

Yamamoto had qualified eighth on the grid but stalled on the grid, forcing him to start from the pitlane.

Although he adopted a similar medium-soft strategy as Cassidy, he could only finish ninth, missing on a points finish by just 0.261s.

Yamamoto’s teammate Fukuzumi finished fifth, ahead of last year’s winner Hiroaki Ishiura (Inging).

Auer dropped to seventh in a relatively subdued outing for the B-Max by Motopark driver, while Tomoki Nojiri grabbed the final championship point in eighth.

Red Bull junior Patricio O’Ward stalled on the way to his grid spot, which led the race to be delayed by five minutes and the race distance to be shortened by a lap.

He was allowed to start from the back alongside the similarly-stalling B-Max/Motopark car of Harrison Newey, and charged his way through the field on a two-stop strategy to finish 14th.

O’Ward, however, slowed down momentarily on track while battling with Artem Markelov and Yamamoto, but was able to return to full speed shortly afterwards.

Race results:

Cla Driver Team Gap 1 Japan Ryo Hirakawa Team Impul 2 Japan Kamui Kobayashi carrozzeria Team KCMG 2.972 3 New Zealand Nick Cassidy Vantelin Team TOM'S 9.771 4 Spain Alex Palou TCS Nakajima Racing 16.314 5 Japan Nirei Fukuzumi DoCoMo Team Dandelion Racing 18.668 6 Japan Hiroaki Ishiura JMS P.mu/cerumo-INGING 28.439 7 Austria Lucas Auer B-MAX with Motopark 43.123 8 Japan Tomoki Nojiri Team Mugen 43.70 9 Japan Naoki Yamamoto DoCoMo Team Dandelion Racing 43.961 10 Japan Yuji Kunimoto Kondo Racing 44.607 11 Japan Kazuya Oshima UOMO Sunoco Team LeMans 45.319 12 Russian Federation Artem Markelov UOMO Sunoco Team LeMans 46.006 13 Japan Kenta Yamashita Kondo Racing 46.645 14 Mexico Patricio O'Ward Team Mugen 48.887 15 Japan Yuhi Sekiguchi Team Impul 49.840 16 Japan Kazuki Nakajima Vantelin Team TOM'S 1'00.738 17 Japan Sho Tsuboi JMS P.mu/cerumo-INGING 1'10.301 18 Japan Koudai Tsukakoshi Real Racing 1'12.814 19 United Kingdom Harrison Newey B-MAX with Motopark 1'27.739 Japan Tadasuke Makino TCS Nakajima Racing 46 Laps View full results

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