MUGEN

2013.10.2

Yamamoto takes third place prize on the podium and leaves Sugo with the potential of a possible win this season!

Series name: 2013 Japanese Championship SUPER FORMULA Round6
Event name: 2013 Japanese Championship SUPER FORMULA Round6 Sportsland SUGO
Course: 3.704km × 68 laps (251.872km)
Qualifying: 2013-09-28 Sat / Fine / Attendance 5,800 (Announcement from the organizer)
Race: 2013-09-29 Sun / Fine / Attendance 10,200 (Announcement from the organizer)

The 2013 Japanese Championship SUPER FORMULA Round6 was held at Sportland SUGO in Miyagi pre. TEAM MUGEN welcomed back #15 driver, Takuma Sato, who took part in the race at Suzuka as a member of TEAM MUGEN, and competed in this race alongside #16 Naoki Yamamoto. Heading into this round Yamamoto was ranked 3rd position in the series points.

September 29th, (Sun)

■   Race
#16 Naoki Yamamoto 3rd place (68 laps: 1:37:11.399 / Best lap: 1:09.399)
#15 Takuma Sato 11th place (66 laps: 1:37:32.149 / Best lap: 1:10.213)

With the weather clearing up, after the 8 minutes warming up period, the race started at 3:00pm. Although #16 Yamamoto started from 2nd position on the grid he was hampered by the pole-sitter, #8, which allowed the 3rd place starter, #2 to pass him, relegating him back to 3rd.

Elsewhere #15 Sato stalled the engine the moment the race started, and was left behind at the grid. With the help of a push-start from a course marshall he was able to get restarted and set off, but already almost in almost one lap behind the rest of the field.

#16 Yamamoto continued to run in 3rd position one second behind the machine in the 2nd. At the third lap a safety car appeared on the course due to an accident, and all the machines were lined up and the race restarted at the end of the 7th lap. However another accident occurred from the restart and the safety car reappeared.

Most of the machines in the leading group took the opportunity to make a pit stop at this time, #16 Yamamoto among them. #15 Sato followed in one lap later. The safety car continued to lead the pack around until the 11th lap, and on the restart #16 Yamamoto took his opportunity to accelerate passed the #2 into 2nd position. Although the pace of #15 Sato, at 1 min 10 secs, was comparable to that of the leading group, being one lap behind he had no choice other than to make way to allow the leading group through. By the end of lap 20 he was in 16th place.

At the 26th lap another accident occurred and the safety car appeared yet again on course, for the 3rd time of the day. However just before the accident occurred #16 Yamamoto had been re-passed by #2 and with several machines yet to have made their pit stop was running 5th on the road. #15 Sato was at this time in 15th position. The race was restarted from the end of lap 31.

#16 Yamamoto kept up the chase behind #2 keeping 2 seconds gap behind in consideration of the amount of fuel he had remaining and the remainder of the laps. At the 51st lap #32 running in the lead was given a penalty due to its erratic driving. As a result #8 inherited the lead with #2 in second, and #16 Yamamoto lying 3rd. #15 Sato was in 14th position.

At the 58th lap a fourth accident occurred and the ever-busy safety car was called into service again, and #16 Yamamoto and #15 Sato stood by to restart their race in 3rd and 11th positions respectively. In the end the race was restarted at the end of the 64th lap with 4 laps of the race remaining. The leading group decreased their speed to find the best timing for the restart, causing the cars behind to become intermingled with each other, resulting #15 Sato running into the back of the car in frontbumped into the car of the group driving in front of Sato. With his front wing damaged Sato had to return to the pit for a nose change.

#16 Yamamoto wanted to focus on overtaking the #2, but he also had to pay careful attention to the #39 behind, which, because of their particular strategy, had plenty of fuel and fresher tires. Just after the restart #16 Yamamoto was almost overtaken by the #39 after a small wheel lock-up under braking between the first and second corner. However he battled to remain in 3rd position at all cost, and the gap between the #2 and #16 Yamamoto expanded. The race ended with #16 Yamamoto in 3rd and #15 Sato in 11th place.

As a result, #16 Yamamoto gained 6 series points giving him a total of 24, but the gap between #16 Yamamoto and the machine in second position was increased to 7 points, with the gap back to fourth position 8 points. Therefore #16 Yamamoto will go into the final round at Suzuka as the third-placed driver series point ranking. #15 Sato will also return to compete in the final race in order to avenge his defeat in this race.

■ Comments from the team director Tezuka

As a preparation for the race we confirmed the setting of the machine with a full tank of gas and the tires used in practice run. I had so much confidence in the setting that we did not care about lap times during the free run at all.

Although there were several unexpected appearances of the safety car during this race, I had from the beginning made up my mind to compete using the same race strategy as the two machines, #8 and #2 and so I was able to remain relaxed.

At around the end of the race when I checked the amount of the gas left in the tank through radio communication with our driver and found out it was running out I had no choice but to choose a strategy to save gas. Since we had concentrated on competing with the two machines running in front of us, we did not notice that the machine behind was running a different strategy that provided them with enough fuel and comparatively fresh tires with which to attack us. We were a bit concerned but Yamamoto skillfully defended himself.

Since we had been longing to be able to compete with our rivals, #8 and #2, I did not regret our choice of strategy, to mirror theirs. As a result we were in 3rd place, which sounds good, but we should not be satisfied with this result since we lost ground on our rivals. But still we can compete in the next race at Suzuka.

Unfortunately the front mainplane of Sato's machine was damaged and Sato had no choice but to come back to the pit. There were some good aspects, but also some homework to take away from this race to be ready for the next race at Suzuka. We, TEAM MUGEN were so grateful of the set-up ability of Sato because this helped us to raise the level of our team. I hope to see him win the race at next round. We thank you very much, Sato.