A Penalty for Cassidy Pushes Takaboshi up to Victory in the Season Opener Fraught with Events
F3-N: Ai Miura Marks Her First Win in a Year

The 2015 Japanese Formula 3 Championship kicked off at Suzuka Circuit for 8 events with 17 races with more entries of 16 cars including 6 in the F3-N class. The official test in March where there were very little differences in the results among highly ranked drivers indicates the title match is going to be tough.

● Cassidy and Ogawa Take Pole Respectively

was Nick Cassidy, the 3rd finisher in the 2014 Macau GP who took pole on Saturday April 18 in the qualifying for the first race of the season with a time of 1m53.049s. The New Zealander lived up to the expectation of PETRONAS TEAM TOM'S in his first driving for the team. "I'm so happy that I took pole in my first race ever in Japan. I am grateful that the team provided a good car for me. I should keep my concentration until the end as I have a superb team-mate," he said. The fellow TOM'S driver Yamashita looked disappointed that he could not get off to a good start with pole in his second year in the championship, while Mitsunori Takaboshi of B-Max Racing team with NDDP and Keishi Ishikawa, the rookie of TODA RACING qualified 3rd and 4th respectively in 1min 53s level, followed by the HFDP RACING rookie, Nirei Fukuzaumi and the B-Max rookie Lucas Ordonez.

Ryo Ogawa of TOM'S topped the times in the F3-N class in 1m56.349s, but the 3 tenths gap over Ai Miura of EXEDY RACING was not so overwhelming as he had earned in the official test, allowing Miura to be able to look for her first win in a long time. DRAGON of B-Max Racing team placed 3rd in the qualifying.

● Cassidy Fends off Yamashita in the Start of the Race

After 5 hours from the end of the qualifying the first race started for 12 laps in the continued fine weather. It was a perfect good day for racing with blue sky. On the formation lap, however, Fukuzumi unexpectedly suffered an engine stall and was forced to start from the pit. The red lights went out with the 5th grid unoccupied.

Yamashita got an unusually good start, putting his car side by side with Cassidy but only to be rebuffed while Takaboshi fluffed his start, conceding the 3rd sport to Ishikawa. A little further back stalled engines dropped both Struan Moore of KCMG and Ogawa all the way to the rear of the field. Miura was promoted to the top of the class and extended her lead over the pole-sitter to more than 4 seconds within the opening lap with DRAGON in a F312 car in between.

In part due to losing momentum at the start of the race Yamashita was 1.2s behind Cassidy at the end of the first lap but was fast enough to ease away from the pursuers to fight a duel with the team-mate. Takaboshi snatched back the 3rd spot by diving sharply the inside of Ishikawa and leapt into the first corner, and the duo exited the corner in this order ahead of Tsubasa Takahashi of HFDP RACING, the B-Max racer completing the first lap 1 second clear of Ishikawa.

● An Unexpected Contact after Head-to-head
　 Fight Brings Victory to Takaboshi

Having set the fastest lap of 1m54.255 on lap 2 Cassidy was only able to keep extending his lead until the end of lap 3 and was gradually closed in by Yamashita, who thereafter had more pace on almost every lap. Fukuzumi was also running well and with good pace similar to Yamashita and Cassidy he played stunning catch-ups to reclaim his position to 8th on lap 6. What if he had got an average start?

"The tyres were heavily worn, but this was something that Kenta was also suffering, I guess," said Cassidy. In fact, however, Yamashita is good at tyre management and he reduced the gap to his team-mate to less than a second on lap 10 as he had planned. On the contrary, Cassidy lost his balance at the Spoon Curve, and as he almost spun out of the track Yamashita finally caught up from the back straight through the 130R and challenged him down the outside line at the chicane, but… the two ended up brushing against each other, forcing Yamashita into the foam barrier and slowing Cassidy down, the kiwi managing to remain on the track and with the help of his margin built early on get through the last two laps and leading home in his debut in the championship. "I should have been more cautious," recalled Cassidy. "It was a superb day until that moment". He stood at the center of the tentative podium, but his triumph turned into disappointment as he was handed 40-seconds penalty and was relegated to 10th place. This brought Takaboshi a victory and put many others up including the Toda rookie Ishikawa to 2nd and Takahashi to 3rd place, his highest ranking ever, with Ordonez, Fukuzumi and Moore rounding out the top six.

● Miura Survives Furious Catch-up
　 from Ogawa to Win the F3-N Class

Miura maintained the lead that she got in the start of the race until she crossed the line for the first time in a year. "I was not really as good at the start as usual, but the others were worse than me, and that's why I took the lead, to which I was able to hold on in spite that my lap times were not so good. I think I should improve it. I'll do my best throughout the season", she smiled.

Ogawa immediately fought his way back to 3rd place within the first lap, and overtook DRAGON on the home straight on lap 2. He went on while lapping at a better pace than Miura, setting the fastest lap of the class, but the gap that had reached over 8 seconds at the end of lap 2 was too big for him to overcome – all he could do was reduce it to 3 seconds. "The test results were so good that I was conceited and even got the engine stalled in the start of the race," Ogawa revealed with regret. "It's a pity, especially because my pace was good while I was catching up". The 3rd place went to DRAGON.