● Yamashita Wins Unlucky Katsuta to Pick up 2nd Win
　 F3-N: Back-to-back Win with Lights to Flag for Koizumi

Takamoto Katsuta of PETRONAS TEAM TOM'S posted a best time of 1m24.887s to take his first pole of 2014 for Rd.7. He prevented Nobuharu Matsushita (HFDP RACING) from setting 5 consecutive poles after beating Matsushita by a tenth second who failed to achieve a clear lap. "I was in a slump lately, but the car has been fully set up and I feel I've come back into form," said Katsuta. His team-mate Kenta Yamashita qualified 3rd ahead of Daiki Sasaki (B-Max Racing Team with NDDP) who had claimed his maiden win of the season in the previous race.
Hiroshi Koizumi of HANASHIMA RACING qualified first in the F3-N class for the second time of the season, followed by Shohei Yuzawa (KCMG) and Rintaro Kubo (TOCHIGI Le Beausset Motorsports).

◎ Championship Lead Matsushita Starts from Pit
It was nice and sunny, perfect conditions for a race, in the 7th round as in the 6th round. The grid presentation went on in a friendly atmosphere with the "Grid Kids". As the formation lap started the cars left the grid one by one, while Matsushita wasn't able to move from the 2nd grid. Despite all the efforts by the officials the machine did not get off the line and was brought back to the pit. Hence the race started with one side of the front row being absent.
"I made a safe start as Matsushita did not start from the grid," said Katsuta, who leapt into the first corner with ease ahead of Yamashita. Sasaki and Mitsunori Takaboshi went around the first corner side by side but Sasaki got in front of his B-MAX team-mate at turn 2.

◎ Koizumi Nails the Start again in F3-N
In F3-N class Koizumi got a good start as usual to exit the first corner in front, while Yuzawa got better start, but Koizumi kept calm to hold out. Kubo was following the leaders before spinning at Attwood on lap 2 to drop down the order.
Bearing in mind that Yamashita was the type of driver who came into his own in closing stages Katsuta decided to go aggressively just for the first couple of laps. When he soundly pulled out up to 1.7s lead everyone believed the lap time he had just set would be the fastest. However, it was immediately broken by Matsushita, whose chance of making it consecutive wins or even finishing 6th in the point had completely been shattered after being forced to start from the pit a lap behind. He proved himself as the championship lead by scoring a point with setting the fastest lap.

◎ Unexpected Trouble Hits Katsuta
Now on the tyre-saving strategy from lap 5 onward Katsuta was still pulling away and kept Yamashita at bay, but an incident happened on lap 19 as his lead reached as much as 2.6 seconds: due to an electrical failure Katsuta suddenly slowed down, allowing Yamashita and Sasaki to ease past him. While Katsuta held on to 3rd place ahead of Takaboshi all he could do was defend his position.
Yamashita gained the lead effortlessly. "I won without too much difficulty," he recalled honestly. This victory brought him back to the top in the standings by 2 points over Matsushita. Scoring 2 consecutive podium finishes Sasaki clearly came out of the slump. Katsuta placed 3rd but obviously he did not look happy about the result. Takaboshi, Nanin Indra-Payoong (CERMO ・ INGING Jr.) and Shota Kiyohara (TODA RACING) rounded out the top six.
Having started from top of the F3-N pack Koizumi was never threatened to clinch his first consecutive win of the season, and at the same time to move in to the class lead by 4 points as Kubo settled for 6th place. "I'm not going to think about the point standing. I'll just do my best to dominate every race from start to finish," the veteran said with enthusiasm. Yuzawa gained 2nd place but understandably looked unhappy. Despite having been tagging after Koizumi in early laps Yuzawa was gradually lagging behind before coming home over 10 seconds behind the leader. Placing third Tairoku Yamaguchi (TAIROKU EXCCED) picked up third podium of the season.