Kakunoshin Ohta gained the opening race of the brand new Tremendous Method season at Motegi in moist circumstances, benefiting from a security automobile restart to cross defending champion Ayumu Iwasa.
Heavy rain on the Tochigi Prefecture monitor meant the race was red-flagged after simply three laps of the scheduled 37 because the drivers struggled with each visibility within the spray and aquaplaning.
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Proceedings have been delayed by greater than an hour, and even when the race lastly resumed with 50 minutes left on the clock, the sector circulated behind the protection automobile earlier than the pack was lastly unleashed on lap 16, with Iwasa sustaining the benefit forward of Ohta.
Moments later the protection automobile was deployed once more as each Kamui Kobayashi and Ukyo Sasahara hit hassle – the 2 made contact at Flip 5, leaving Kobayashi’s TGM Grand Prix machine stranded and Sasahara’s Kondo Racing automobile with terminal harm.
The race went inexperienced as soon as once more on lap 20, and Dandelion Racing driver Ohta instantly pounced on Iwasa at Flip 1 to seize a lead that he wouldn’t relinquish.
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Ohta’s win was all however secured when the protection automobile was referred to as once more nearly instantly as Juju Noda beached her automobile within the gravel at Flip 5.
With time expiring after 23 laps, Ohta took victory forward of Crew Mugen’s Iwasa, with solely half factors being awarded because the race didn’t attain 75% distance.
It marks Dandelion’s fourth consecutive win at Motegi and Ohta’s seventh within the collection, placing him within the early championship lead by 1.5 factors.
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Ren Sato transformed his third-place begin to the identical place on the end forward of Nakajima Racing team-mate Igor Fraga, who handed Yuto Nomura on the primary restart.
B-Max Racing rookie Nomura struggled to rise up to hurry and misplaced additional positions to each Syun Koide, who went on to attain ThreeBond Racing’s best-ever Tremendous Method end in fifth, and the main Toyota-powered automobile of Sacha Fenestraz (TOM’S).
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Finishing the scorers have been Tomoki Nojiri (Mugen) in his a centesimal Tremendous Method begin, Sho Tsuboi (TOM’S) and Method 2 graduate Roman Stanek, who shocked the paddock by making it into Q2 and qualifying ninth for Buzz MK Racing on his collection debut.
Stanek’s fellow F2 convert Luke Browning completed his first Tremendous Method race 14th within the surviving Kondo automobile, however was concerned in a scary incident with fellow Briton Zak O’Sullivan on the again straight approaching the downhill Flip 11 right-hander.
Unsighted within the thick spray, Browning needed to take avoiding motion to overlook the Cerumo/Inging automobile of Sena Sakaguchi within the braking zone, and clipped the front-left nook of O’Sullivan’s Crew Impul machine within the course of.
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That contact was sufficient to place O’Sullivan out of the race, however Williams F1 reserve Browning was in a position to proceed seemingly with out harm after a spin.
Of the opposite newcomers, Charlie Wurz was sixteenth for Crew Goh and Rikuto Kobayashi was nineteenth in his TGM machine, forward of Nirei Fukuzumi (Rookie Racing), who ended up final of the runners in twentieth after being excluded from qualifying for an underweight automobile.
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