June 24, 2017 Rd. 10 Suzuka

Tsuboi clinches his first F3 win with a perfect lights-to-flag victory in a Corolla Chukyo Kuo Team TOM’S 1-2

Winner of Japanese Formula3 Round 10 Sho Tsuboi and Ritomo Miyata(2nd place)

A qualifying for Rd 10 and Rd 11 races as well as Rd 10 race of Japanese Formula 3 championship took place on Saturday June 24, 2017. Following a number of red flags caused in Blancpain GT Series Asia, another bill of this Suzuka race weekend the 30-minute qualifying was started 35 minutes late at 11:35 am in fair weather. Best and second best times of each driver would determine grid for Rd 10 and Rd 11 races respectively.

Start of Round 10

On his first attack Sho Tsuboi (in Corolla Chukyo Kuo TOM’S F317) topped the times with 1m.53.116 and his team-mate Ritomo Miyata (Corolla Chukyo Kuo TOM’S F314) was came second with 1m.53.606. After a red flag interruption caused at 11:42 am by a Tairoku Yamaguchi’s (Tairoku Racing #28) single crash at Degner Ryoya Hasegawa stalled his Alb Niigata Daiichi Hotel Sugar at Spoon at 11:59 am, causing another red flag.

With leading drivers immediately setting about improving their times as the session resumed with three and a half minutes to go it was Tsuboi again who topped the times on second attack with 1m52.746, taking his first F3 pole position for Rd 10 and Rd 11. Miyata also secured another front row position for both races.
DRAGON placed his B-Max Racing F306 on F3-N pole position for both races.

■ A close battle between Tsuboi and Miyata goes into final lap

As the Rd 10 race was started five minutes late at 5:05 pm in the twilight the Corolla TOM’S pair got away strongly to maintain the lead into the first corner.

Sho Tsuboi（Collora Chukyo Kuo TOM'S F317）

Having started in fourth place Hiroki Otsu (TODA FIGHTEX) made a good start to sweep up the inside, only for Mitsunori Takaboshi (B-MAX NDDP F3) in fifth to leap into Turn one around the outside for third place ahead of Alex Palou (THREEBOND).
Despite a contact with Palou, Takaboshi defended his third spot as Palou challenged his inside at the Hitachi Automotive Systems chicane on the opening lap, but would cede it to the ThreeBond at Turn one a lap later.
The early laps saw the lead four tour around with each gap of a second and leave Sena Sakaguchi (HFDP RACING F316) and Hongli Ye (KRC with B-Max F315) to fight with Otsu behind – who would move up to fifth on lap five after beating the two.

Mitsunori Takaboshi（B-MAX NDDP F3）

With Tsuboi heading into the closing stages still with less than a second lead over his team-mate Takaboshi picked up the pace and snatched back the third place from Palou on lap eight with an overtaking pass on the run down the first corner. The second placed Miyata also picked up his pace to close the gap to the lead.

In a bid to clinch first victory in Japanese Formula 3 championship the leading TOM’S pair were playing a fierce battle as the race neared the chequered flag while renewing fastest laps by turns before Tsuboi took his first win, crossing the line with his arm in the air as Miyata slightly dropped off the pace on the final lap. Takaboshi placed third ahead of Palou and Otsu.

DRAGON（B-Max Racing F306）

■ DRAGON hangs on to his lead

Having putting on a commanding performance over the weekend DRAGON dominated the F3-N pack throughout the race.
The B-MAX racer quickly opened up his lead from the start, leaving Alex Yang (HuaJiangHU F3) in second and Masayuki Ueda (Rn Yamashita Seisakusho F308) in third to closely battle far behind, and though he was running out of gas in the closing stages he managed to bring his machine to the chequered flag with a sizeable 7.456 sec lead, scoring his fifth win of the season. Ueda secured second place after passing Yang on lap ten – who had set the fastest lap in the class.

Result & Entry List PDF