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Lights-to-flag for Nakayama in Wet Conditions
Takaboshi Stretches His Winning Streak to 3

The Japanese F3 Championship now moved its battlefield to Twin Ring Motegi. It was the first time for months for the series to have one race on Saturday and 2 races on Sunday in one week. The forecast said the weather was going to get worse for the weekend, but the condition was kept dry until the end of the qualifying on Saturday morning.
Many expected an unofficial record time set by Yuichi Nakayama of PETRONAS TEAM TOM’S during practice session would be broken on Saturday in better conditions with air temperature of 22 degrees C and road surface temperature of 27 degrees C. Maintaining his momentum the TOM’S driver officially set a  record time of 1:44.400 in the first qualifying to claim his third pole, followed by his team mate Takamoto Katsuta with 5 second behind and Tomoki Nojiri of TODA RACING. Mitsunori Takaboshi of NDDP RACING took pole for the third time in a row in F3-N class, followed by Hiroshi Koizumi of HANASHIMA RACING, Nanin Indra-Payoong of TOM’S SPIRIT and Ryosuke Takehira of KCMG as a wild-card appearance.
The weather was getting worse as predicted with a fall in the temperature and all the 13 cars elected to wear rain tyres for the race in the afternoon with air temperature of 15 degrees C and road surface temperature of 18 degrees C. Fortunately though, the rain was not so heavy.
Nakayama got away best into the first corner. “During the sighting lap I made sure there was no problem with the machine balance and sufficiently warmed up the tyres, so all I needed to do was make a good start,” said him. Katsuta and Nojiri followed in the qualifying order. Katsumasa Chiyo of B-MAX ENGINEERING passed Shinji Matsushita of HFDP RACING to move into 4th.
While the leaders had to keep certain distances with each other, soaked with too much splashes, at the start of lap 2, the third-placed Nojiri stumbled over a puddle and ran wide at Victory Corner, allowing Chiyo to largely reduce the gap but surviving furious catch-up attempts at first and third corners. The laps after that saw no events except Nakayama set the fastest lap on lap 6. He dominated the race from start to finish. “With the successful start I was able to continue at a good pace with good visibility. I think good machine balance in that wet condition enabled me to be free from worries and race with confidence” he related.
Katsuta finished second and Nojiri finished third. It was the first podium finish of the season for the Toda driver.
Takaboshi got a great start into the first corner at the front in the class and in the 6th place overall, followed by Takehira, who passed 2 cars and rocketed to second out of turn 1. In his first race ever in F3 the KCMG driver kept pace with Takaboshi in this wet conditions making use of his considerable experiences at Motegi with Super FJ and F4 until the closing stages when he span at Victory Corner on lap 9, ceding his position to Indra-Payoong.
With over 6-second lead brought by Takehira’s drop Takaboshi comfortably shook off Indra-Payoong to secure his 3 consecutive wins in F3-N class.
“This was the first time for me to race in wet condition,” said Takaboshi. “But due the good machine balance and the successful start I was able to build up a competitive advantage in the early stages.”
Nakayama also secured pole for the Rd 5 by winning this race, which means he dominated all the poles for this Motegi race weekend. Further battles were expected to take place next day with 2 races.

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