Honda-powered squad began its 2025 season with 4 consecutive wins, throughout the opening double-headers at Suzuka and Motegi, with its drivers Tadasuke Makino and Kakunoshin Ohta selecting up two wins apiece.
Together with final 12 months’s closing double at Suzuka, which was swept by Ohta, Dandelion has gained the final six races in a row — the final time that was finished was by , all the way in which again in 2000. That 12 months, which was dominated by ex-Method 1 racer Toranosuke Takagi, was additionally the final time a workforce opened a marketing campaign with 4 straight victories.
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Makino and Ohta are each 20 factors clear within the drivers’ championship over third-placed Ayumu Iwasa, the Racing Bulls F1 reserve who leads Staff ’s cost. The groups’ title already seems nearly a finished take care of Dandelion on over double the factors of Mugen.
It’s a exceptional run of kind for the small Kyoto-based workforce, which has simply 25 everlasting employees and was fashioned in 1993 by Kiyoshi Muraoka to race in All-Japan Method 3.
After struggling for outcomes each in F3 and the now-defunct Japan Touring Automotive Championship, which ran to Tremendous Touring guidelines, Dandelion first entered what was then often known as Method Nippon in 1999 with a single automobile for little-known Argentinian driver Ruben Derfler.
The early years in Method Nippon have been powerful going, however the charismatic Muraoka was busy constructing the foundations for future success. In 2001, he signed Norimitsu Yoshida as chief engineer, starting a partnership that continues to the current day. Later that season he signed a take care of the Sauber F1 workforce to offer technical help.
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However results-wise, it was solely after the workforce signed Ulsterman Richard Lyons to interchange an underperforming Jonathan Cochet in mid-2002 that issues took an upturn.
Kiyoshi Muraoka maintaining a tally of Naoki Yamamoto in 2019
Kiyoshi Muraoka maintaining a tally of Naoki Yamamoto in 2019 Masahide Kamio
Masahide Kamio
With the assistance of engineer Rob Arnott, who joined the workforce in 2003, Lyons scored Dandelion’s first win that 12 months at Suzuka, which proved the springboard to a profitable title bid the next 12 months. Muraoka additionally credit the workforce’s growth to a second automobile and the work of veteran Naoki Hattori (who did not qualify for 2 grands prix at Coloni again in 1991) as Lyons’ team-mate throughout this era as one other think about Dandelion’s rise.
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When the present Toyota versus Honda engine rivalry started in 2006, Dandelion joined the Honda camp. Beginning with Takuya Izawa in 2009, it was charged with serving to practice the marque’s younger drivers, its relationship with Honda evolving from that of mere engine provider to one thing a lot deeper.
A primary groups’ title got here in 2012 with Izawa and one other Honda protege, Koudai Tsukakoshi. After a fallow interval throughout the SF14 period (the spotlight of which was ’s pair of wins in 2016 on his approach to F1), Dandelion bounced again within the first 12 months of the SF19 with one other groups’ title, adopted by a second drivers’ title for Naoki Yamamoto in 2020.
“What we try to show is that privateer groups can nonetheless do nice issues, like within the outdated days of motorsport” Kiyoshi Muraoka
Fixed chopping-and-changing within the driver line-up, with Yamamoto and Nirei Fukuzumi leaving in consecutive years, precipitated Dandelion’s star to wane once more considerably. The primary season with the revised SF23 machine additionally regarded prefer it might be one to overlook, earlier than a productive in-season take a look at at Fuji catapulted Makino and then-rookie Ohta up the order, culminating with the latter getting his first win on the finish of that season.
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Makino broke his victory duck in emotional fashion final 12 months at Autopolis, with he and Ohta delivering Dandelion its third groups’ title. Now with each its drivers on the head of the standings, break up by only a single level, Muraoka has set the specific goal of profitable the drivers’ and groups’ crowns in the identical 12 months for the primary time within the squad’s historical past.
Dandelion’s present success, on paper, shouldn’t be potential. Lean in measurement, it will get by with simply two engineers per automobile at a time that almost all different groups have three, with the likes of Mugen and TOM’S having much more than that. The ultra-experienced Yoshida takes on the twin position of race engineer to Ohta’s #6 automobile and workforce director.
Blooming within the springtime: the Dandelion duo received 2025 off to a nice begin at Suzuka
Blooming within the springtime: the Dandelion duo received 2025 off to a nice begin at SuzukaMasahide Kamio
Masahide Kamio
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Based mostly in Kameoka Metropolis close to Kyoto, Dandelion can also be considerably remoted from the principle hub of the Japanese motorsport trade within the Gotemba space (two hours’ drive from Tokyo, close to Fuji), the place most Tremendous Method groups are based mostly.
This makes it difficult to recruit new employees, though it additionally fosters a way of loyalty among the many members it does entice, and helps cease any secrets and techniques from leaking. The F1 equal – fittingly sufficient, given Dandelion’s former affiliation – could be Sauber.
Placing the situation to 1 facet, maybe the higher F1 analogue could be Williams as, just like the Grove squad, Dandelion exists purely to compete and win in its chosen self-discipline.
It doesn’t compete in every other classes, eschewing Japan’s different high sequence, Tremendous GT, by which the likes of TOM’S, Mugen and Nakajima are all lively. “I feel this provides us a sort of purity I feel different groups don’t have,” Muraoka informed Autosport in an interview final 12 months.
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Ex-Method 2 racer Makino and new rising star Ohta additionally deserve their share of the credit score for Dandelion’s 2025 kind, their pleasant rivalry pushing the pair to ever-greater heights.
Each appear like authentic title contenders, and the pressure their up-to-now cordial relationship will come underneath is bound to be a speaking level because the season develops, particularly after Ohta was left fuming after the second race of the Suzuka opener after being handed by Makino whereas underneath the impression the workforce had instructed him to remain behind.
Muraoka might effectively have a job on his arms maintaining the pair in examine because the prize nears, however after a pair of 1-2 finishes for his drivers at Motegi, it’s all good vibes for now. Certainly, at Motegi, the flamboyant workforce proprietor appeared within the parc ferme interview to jokingly inform long-time sponsor NTT Docomo to open its pockets and cough up some win bonuses!
After Dandelion gained the groups’ title in 2019, Muraoka had introduced his retirement, however a mixture of circumstances amid the COVID-19 pandemic lastly meant he stayed on as the general public ‘face’ of the workforce. Tremendous Method, which is utilizing the slogan ‘Human Motorsport’ to advertise itself, is all of the richer for having him round.
The workforce adopted up its Suzuka clear sweep with one other within the subsequent spherical at Motegi
The workforce adopted up its Suzuka clear sweep with one other within the subsequent spherical at MotegiMasahide Kamio
Masahide Kamio
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And in an period by which cash is king, it’s refreshing to see an underdog outfit like his that’s nonetheless able to upsetting the chances.
“In most championships, it’s essential be a producer or have an in depth alliance with a producer to win,” stated Muraoka. “What we try to show is that privateer groups can nonetheless do nice issues, like within the outdated days of motorsport. I feel if a workforce like ours didn’t exist any extra, the championship could be much less fascinating.” Amen to that.
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