Yuto Nomura leads the way: a preview of the third round of the F4 Japanese Championship

 

Image credit: F4 Japanese Championship


As the championship heads to Fuji Speedway for the third round of the 2024 season, Honda junior Yuto Nomura leads the championship after sweeping the Suzuka round by winning both races of the weekend.

Fellow Honda junior and teammate Ryota Horachi also had a strong round last time out, taking second and third in both races respectively, being accompanied by drivers not affiliated with either Honda nor Toyota on the podium: Kotaro Shimbara in race one and Tosei Moriyama in race two.

The latter of the two is a former Honda junior, having raced with HFDP Racing last season, and currently sits second in the standings and looks to prove a point with a strong start to the season, taking a win in strange circumstances at Fuji and never finishing below fourth at Suzuka.

As Honda-affiliated drivers have had a strong start to the season thus far, Toyota's roster hasn't had the smoothest of starts, with its highest-placed driver being Yuki Sano, winner of the opening race of the season, currently sixth in the standings after a slightly disappointing Suzuka round.

Sano's teammates had an even rockier start to the season: Kazuhisa Urabe has a best result of fifth (achieved in the opening race of the season) and currently sits eighth in the standings, Kiyoshi Umegaki scored a best result of seventh last time out and looks to build on his flashes of speed shown in the previous races, as Tokiya Suzuki only has one points finish to his name, a seventh place in the first race of the opening round.

While the Manufacturer-affiliated teams and drivers have always been at the top consistently throughout the championship's history, the rise in performance of Independent teams can't be overlooked. The aforementioned Moriyama races for HELM Motorsports, a team who hadn't taken a win since the 2020 season finale and hasn't had one of their drivers finish above 10th in the standings since 2021.

Just behind Moriyama in the standings, sits Hironobu Shimizu, who drives for Drago Corse, a team that is in its second season of competition in F4, coming off a difficult season, where they failed to score points throughout the fourteen races, but this season looks to be a big leap forward, as Shimizu and teammate Itsuki Sato have both taken podiums, with Shimizu's strong form at Suzuka, where he took two top 5s, suggesting that the team has improved a lot throughout the off-season.

The F4 Japanese Championship is divided into two classes for drivers, the "Champion class" and the "Independent class". The former consists mostly of up-and-coming drivers looking to start their careers in professional motorsport, while the Independent's class is comprised of Gentlemen drivers (commonly known as Bronze-rated drivers in other forms of Motorsport).

"Dragon" (real name Ryuji Kumita) leads the way in the Independent's class, taking a win in both rounds and scoring a podium in every race he started. Just behind "Dragon" sits "Kentaro", who won the second race of the opening round in interesting circumstances and also scored a class podium at the first Suzuka race.

25 points behind Kumita sits Nobuhiro Imada, three-time champion of Super Formula Lights in the Masters class, who seems to be the only driver able to match "Dragon" on a consistent basis, having beaten his friend and team boss in the first race at Suzuka to take the class win and finishing close behind him in the second race.

Where and when to watch the action

The races will be free to watch on the F4 Japanese's Youtube channel.

Race one will start at 12:15 JST on Saturday, while Race two will start at 8:40 JST on Sunday.


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