July 8, 2017 Rd. 12 Fuji

Rd 12 Fuji race begins with a contact between front-row pair into 1st corner
Takaboshi takes an opportunity to win, taking 7th victory of the season

Winner of Japanese Formula3 Round 12 Mitsunori Takaboshi and his advisor, Satoshi Motoyama

Qualifying for Rd 12 and Rd 13 races and Rd 12 race took place on Saturday July 8 at Fuji Speedway as sixth event of 2017 Japanese Formula 3 championship.

Start of Round 12

Best time and second best time of each driver of this qualifying would determine grids for Rd 12 and Rd 13 races respectively as in the previous Suzuka event.
It started for 30 minutes at 8:30 am with clear skies, and Corolla Chukyo Kuo TOM’S pair dominated the front row for Rd 12 race as Sho Tsuboi (in Corolla Chukyo Kuo TOM’S F317) topped the times with 1m34.167, 0.089 sec clear of Ritomo Miyata (Corolla Chukyo Kuo TOM’S F314) with Mitsunori Takaboshi (B-MAX NDDP F3) in third.

Although DRAGON (B-Max Racing F306) was the fastest in F3-N, posting 1m38.286 his best and second best times would be counted invalid because of track limit abuse. This promoted Masayuki Ueda (Rn Yamashita Seisakusho F308) to pole position of the class and demoted himself to fifth place. Alex Yang (HuaJiangHU F3) would start from another front row position.

■ An unexpected incident off the line

The starting grid presentation for Rd 12 race began after a four-hour interval at 1:10 pm still in clear weather but a bit cooler conditions.

Mitsunori Takaboshi （B-MAX RACING TEAM WITH NDDP）

As the lights went out at 1:30 pm both Tsuboi and Miyata got away strongly off the line. However, the Corolla TOM’S duo made contact as they headed into the first corner side by side with the latter holding the inside line, running across the grass in a tangle. The third-starting Takaboshi took the opportunity to grab the lead from Hiroki Otsu (TODA FIGHTEX). Both Tsuboi and Miyata were able to return to the track, but Tsuboi was forced to pit to replace his damaged right hand rear tyre.

Alex Palou (THREEBOND) passed Ai Miura (EXEDY B-Max F317) in third on the opening lap, with the B-MAX allowing Sena Sakaguchi (HFDP RACING F316) to overtake on lap five before coming under pressure from recovering Miyata.

Hiroki Otsu（TODA FIGHTEX）

Despite mounting pressure from Palou in third Otsu firmly protected his inside line at TGR on lap six. Staying well out of the cars behind Takaboshi enjoyed a solid run to his seventh win of the season with a 2.715 sec lead over Otsu. Sakaguchi, Miura and Miyata rounded out the top six.

Behind them was a furious battle fought among Hongli Ye (KRC with B-Max F315), Yoshiaki Katayama (OIRC F315) and Tairoku Yamaguchi (Tairoku Racing #28 car), which would be decided when Katayama rear-ended Yamaguchi at TGR on lap 13, sending the latter into retirement, and giving Katayama a penalty for his dangerous action.

DRAGON（B-Max Racing F306）

■F3-N: DRAGON wins a feisty race

F3-N saw Yang complete the opening lap up front with Ueda in second ahead of DRAGON – who had made two places, having started from fifth.
Ueda was the first to make a move, getting ahead of Yang, and then DRAGON took advantage of a mistake Ueda made at Lexus on lap three to take the lead, which he would multiply for his seventh victory of the season.
Ueda and Yang’s battle over second spot came down to the penultimate lap when the B-Max driver defeated the HuaJiangHU at TGR to claim second spot.

Result & Entry List PDF