10/19/2013 Round 14 Fuji Speedway

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Chiyo Stops Tom's Winning Streak
Indra-Payoong Scores Back-to-back Wins in the F3-N Class

The Japanese F3 Championship had season’s finale at Fuji Speedway where Katsumasa Chiyo of B-MAX ENGINEERING took his first-ever pole in the qualifying for Rd 14 on Saturday. It was Takamoto Katsuta of PETRONAS TEAM TOM’S who broke the 1min 34secs barrier first but just after that Chiyo set a faster time of 1:33.760, slightly short of the record time.
“I focused all my attention to driving throughout the qualifying. The car has been getting better lap by lap since the practice session on Friday, and now it’s in very good shape,” said the B-Max driver. Katsuta secured 2nd, followed by Nobuharu Matsushita of HFDP RACING. The 2013 F3-N class champion Mitsunori Takaboshi of NDDP RACING topped the times in the class in front of Nanin Indra-Payoong of TOM’S SPIRIT. Incidentally, the 2013 Japanese F3 series champion Yuichi Nakayama missed the qualifyings of this Fuji race weekend for being in bad condition. Despite being powered by a 2012 1AZ-FE engine with a smaller restrictor the 2011 series champion Yuhi Sekiguchi placed 5th on his special appearance in the championship in a B-MAX ENGINEERING Dallara, which is also Macau GP spec car for Chiyo.
Although it started sprinkling the track was not so wet when the formation lap started at 14:50 pm. Nailing the start as he usually did as the red lights went out Chiyo jumped into turn 1 ahead of Katsuta. The pole-sitter was opening up his lead through each turn while Matsushita in 3rd was squabbling with Tomoki Nojiri, the TODA driver slipstreaming Matsushita to get past on the straight after turn 2.
In the F3-N class Takaboshi fluffed in his start while Hiroshi Koizumi showed a determined dash for the lead into turn 1 but lost control and ended up going off the track. A car getting in his way and his tardy acceleration dropped the Hanashima Racing driver further down the order on the final turn. Takaboshi rocketed from the foot of the field to 2nd before completing the opening lap, but the gap with Indra-Payoong, who had capitalized the confusions of the cars around to take the lead, reached already 2.5sec.
While the 2nd-placed Katsuta was also pulling out a comfortable lead Nojiri was having difficulty keeping pace, allowing Matsushita to recapture the spot when he went off the track in the Dunlop corner on lap 5. He was also overtaken by Shota Kiyohara (HFDP RACING) to overtake on lap 8, and by Sekiguchi on lap 10 at which point the rain suddenly got heavier, forcing each driver to set a few seconds slower lap. Surprisingly Katsuta span in the wet conditions and overdrove on turn 1 on lap 9, allowing Matsushita to get by.
Once the rain stopped in the closing stages of the race and the track got better Chiyo put the hammer to the floor. Setting the fastest lap on lap 20, the B-Max driver led home, clinching a long-cherished first win with over 7sec advantage ahead of Matsushita. Despite having reduced as big as 2 seconds gap to several tenths Katsuta was unable to improve the spot. “I was going all out from the start to lap 3 in order not to be slipstreamed by Katsuta. It was quite a difficult race with heavy rain,” recalled Chiyo. “Once the rain stopped I decided to aim at fastest lap, and I’m glad I succeeded. I think I was able to develop a perfect race,” he smiled.

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