Sho Tsuboi made it a double Tremendous Components victory at Fuji on Sunday to seize the championship lead heading into the ultimate weekend of the season subsequent month at Suzuka.
TOM’S man Tsuboi transformed his first pole of the 12 months into one other win at Fuji, giving himself an ideal report on the Toyota-owned venue in 2024 and changing into the primary driver to win two races in a single weekend since Andre Lotterer in 2011.
Nirei Fukuzumi proved Tsuboi’s nearest challenger in an incident-strewn race that featured no fewer than three security automotive intervals, ending second for KCMG, whereas Tadasuke Makino cemented second within the standings in third place.
The primary warning interval got here on simply the second lap of 41 as Iori Kimura tipped Atsushi Miyake right into a spin on the Flip 10 right-hander, with Nyck de Vries additionally getting caught up within the melee and having to pit for a recent entrance wing.
Tsuboi maintained the lead via to the second security automotive interval, triggered when Kazuya Oshima was despatched right into a spin by Yuji Kunimoto at Flip 1.
That got here not lengthy after the pit window opened and a number of other frontrunners, together with Fukuzumi, had come into the pits for his or her necessary stops.
However with Tsuboi capable of full his in-lap at nearly unabated tempo, he maintained the lead forward of Fukuzumi, whereas Ren Sato beat Makino out of the pits to maneuver into third.
After the restart on lap 17, Tsuboi started to eke away from Fukuzumi, however the KCMG driver saved the chief in his sights and was solely a matter of tenths behind when the security automotive made its ultimate look on lap 32.
That adopted a collision between Sena Sakaguchi and Naoki Yamamoto exiting Flip 2, which noticed the entrance of Yamamoto’s Nakajima Racing automotive get airborne as he rode up on the again of Sakaguchi’s Inging machine.
Yamamoto was seen being stretchered into an ambulance and was taken to the medical centre for checks.
Tomoki Nojiri, TEAM MUGEN
Photograph by: Masahide Kamio
The race resumed with simply three laps left with Tsuboi heading residence Fukuzumi by 1.3 seconds, whereas Makino was capable of wrest third again off Ren Sato previous to the ultimate security automotive interval.
Which means he heads to subsequent month’s Suzuka finale trailing Tsuboi by 14.5 factors, with 46 on provide throughout the double-header weekend.
Sato nonetheless claimed his greatest end of the 12 months for Nakajima Racing in fourth, forward of Kakunoshin Ota, who recovered nicely from 14th on the grid within the second Dandelion automotive.
Kamui Kobayashi was sixth within the second KCMG automotive after a late go on Purple Bull junior Ayumu Iwasa, the Mugen driver having began down in twelfth after his greatest lap in qualifying was taken away for a observe limits breach.
After his early dramas, de Vries recovered to complete eighth in his ultimate outing for Staff Impul, passing a fading Tomoki Nojiri (Mugen) simply previous to the ultimate warning interval, whereas Kenta Yamashita claimed the ultimate level for Kondo Racing in tenth
Nojiri finds himself 18.5 factors down on Tsuboi after dropping six locations from his grid place.
Put up-race Sato was handed a 10-second penalty for making contact at Flip 1 with Makino as he exited the pits, dropping him out of the factors to fifteenth place.
It means Ota strikes as much as fourth forward of Kobayashi and Iwasa.
De Vries was additionally stripped of his factors end for contact with Yamashita, with a five-second penalty dropping the Dutchman all the way down to eleventh.
Because of this, Nojiri jumps two locations to seventh forward of Yamashita, whereas Iori Kimura and Toshiki Oyu are promoted into the ultimate factors positions.
Two additional factors for Nojiri means he goes to the Suzuka finale 16.5 factors behind Tsuboi.
