October 18, 2015
Rd 17 Sportsland SUGO

◎ Cassidy clinches F3 title with dominant back-to-back wins at season's finale
F3-N: Ogawa tops off the season with lights-to-flag

● Cassidy secures a second consecutive pole position
　 while Sekiguchi secures third position

The 2015 Japanese F3 Championship have gone into its final round at Sportsland SUGO. Nick Cassidy scored an extra point as he secured a second consecutive pole position on Saturday October 17 for his seventh front row start. The PETRONAS TEAM TOM'S driver posted 1m13 651 and then 1m13.515 to take pole position from Lucas Ordonez, the second qualifier from the previous round, who failed to improve a time of 1m13.519 that he had posted early on.
"I hope to turn this back-to-back pole position into a strong result to wrap up this season," Cassidy expressed his enthusiasm.
On his last lap Yuhi Takaboshi of B-Max Racing team slotted in to third position, posting 1m13.581 with Kenta Yamashita of PETRONAS TEAM TOM'S, Mitsunori Takaboshi of B-Max Racing Team with NDDP and Nirei Fukuzumi of HFDP RACING rounding out top six.
Posting 1m16.469 Ryo Ogawa took his 15th pole position in F3-N class ahead of Ai Miura of EXEDY RACING and DRAGON of B-Max Racing team. The time put the TOM'S driver in tenth position overall, even ahead of Tairoku Yamaguchi of TAIROKU Hanashima Racing from the championship class.
"Beating any championship driver has always been one of my goals, so I'm extremely happy," said Ogawa.

● Sekiguchi and Ordonez make contact off the start line
　 for second spot

Sunday was as crisp a day as Saturday. The Rd 17 race would inevitably be tougher for 25 laps, 7 more laps than in Rd. 16.
Cassidy again got the holeshot unopposed into the first corner, while Ordonez and Sekiguchi made contact off the start line as the latter attempted to pass from the outside, almost sending him out of the track before allowing a pack of Yamashita, Takaboshi, Keishi Ishikawa of TODA RACING and Fukuzumi to shoot past.
Although Ogawa was still tenth position on the opening lap keeping on top in the class the difference in speed on straight between his and Yamaguchi's cars was so big that he lost out down the first corner a lap later. Ai Miura was second 1.5 seconds off the class pole.

● A close battle played behind Cassidy over second spot
Behind Cassidy continuing to open up his lead Ordonez and Yamashita played a close battle, which would soon be joined by Takaboshi, while a little further back Fukuzumi was trapped by the dirt at the Rainbow on lap four and Sekiguchi capitalised on this to recover one place for sixth, the HFDP driver narrowly balancing himself only to fall to seventh place.
With some backmarkers in the closing stages the battle for second spot was largely affected; a car spun and stopped at the S-curve, and as soon as the yellow flags came out the three racers all slowed down but unfortunately it wasn't enough for Takaboshi – there was nothing for him but get past Yamashita on lap 23, which also saw Fukuzumi snatch back the spot from Sekiguchi at the Horseback.
Cassidy was never challenged to extend his lead to about 20secs lead at the chequered flag ahead of Ordonez, Takaboshi and Yamashita. Takaboshi, however, was given a 30secs time penalty for having overtaken while the yellow was being shown, dropping him down the order to eighth place and moving Yamashita up to third place ahead of Ishikawa and Fukuzumi. Sekiguchi was also given a 30secs time penalty for more than a single redirection of driving line, ceding the sixth place to Tsubasa Takahashi of HFDP RACING.

● PETRONAS TEAM TOM'S gets all the titles

Cassidy took his seventh win to seal a commanding 2015 Japanese Formula 3 championship title, and contributed to the PETRONAS TEAM TOM'S' team title and the TOM'S Ltd's engine tuner title. Every team member celebrated the triple victories.
"The successful starts off the line in both the races helped me clinch the championship title, and notably I had an ideal race development for the final round, so I believe I could have shown even better performance [if there had been more races left]," said Cassidy. "Nothing has been decided for the future but I would be happy if I could continue to race in Japanese championships like Super Formula and Super GT, but the first thing to do is make my best in the Macau GP."
In the meanwhile Ogawa picked up his 14th win from Ai Miura by 6secs. Indeed, the F3-N class champion topped off the 2015 season with proving himself by reducing as much as 2secs gap to Yamaguchi to five tenths to the chequered flag. Cunnington finished fourth place, his career best result, behind DRAGON.
"It was an interesting experience for me to race the series with great drivers Nick and Kenta as team-mates despite the different classes. I learned a lot from it, I feel I have grown so much," said Ogawa, "I am keen to race in an upper series in 2016. Well, it was a very good year for me." he recalled.