Including official tests, Otsu has now sampled all but two of the Honda-powered outfits during the 2023 campaign, the 29-year-old having already driven for Dandelion Racing, Team Mugen and B-Max Racing so far in 2023 in his role as Honda's reserve driver.
The circumstances surrounding Otsu's second call-up to a race seat were somewhat less dramatic compared to last time, when he was parachuted into the car vacated by Tomoki Nojiri at Autopolis after the two-time champion suffered a collapsed lung on the Friday of race week.
This time, it transpired that TGM regular Toshiki Oyu had broken his collarbone while playing squash on the Monday. Having undergone surgery on Tuesday, Oyu showed up at the circuit on Friday with his arm in a sling, and was initially hopeful of still being able to compete. But the youngster hinted the decision to sit out the race was made for him - with Honda understood to be keen for him to be fit for next month’s Fuji SUPER GT round.
And it just so happened that Otsu was already present at the track in a coaching role for the B-Max Super Formula Lights team, meaning no repeat of the mad Friday evening dash to get to the track he experienced at Autopolis.
Last weekend’s race was a reunion of sorts for Otsu, who made his Super Formula debut in 2021 in Team Mugen when it was still being operated in partnership with Servus Japan - the team that runs TGM, formerly known as Team Goh.
TGM is renowned for the high level of its engineering staff, one of the reasons Oyu left Nakajima Racing to join the squad this year, and speaking after qualifying, Otsu said the big step he was able to make between free practice and qualifying left him stunned.
“I could feel the strength of the team,” Otsu told Motorsport.com. “From free practice to qualifying, there were a huge number of people exchanging various ideas on how to prepare the car. I think that’s what allowed me to set the second-fastest time in Q1.
“Many people [engineers] are involved, and I was surprised by the number of people whose opinions allowed us to find the good points and bad points of the car.”
Comparing TGM to the other teams he has driven for this year, he added: “I’ve been able to experience the ways different teams are doing things, and how they are building the car. Each car has a different character, they all generate grip in different ways.
“They all suit different circuits and different conditions. It’s interesting to see the different ways that teams think.”
Unfortunately for Otsu, getting caught up in traffic while he was still warming his tyres in Q2 restricted him to ninth on the grid. A strong start had him briefly as high as fifth, but he didn’t have the pace to stay there, slipping to seventh behind Ritomo Miyata and Kakunoshin Ota (the driver in his old seat at Dandelion) before the pitstop phase and then losing out to Nojiri with a slow out-lap.
Having also been overcut by the late-stopping (and seriously rapid) Ryo Hirakawa, Otsu was on course for ninth - and the #53 car’s first points in a race since the opening round - until his front-left tyre mysteriously parted company with the rest of the car on the penultimate lap, leaving him stranded.
Subsequent analysis showed that a piece of debris got stuck between the brake caliper and the wheel itself, damaging the wheel and caused what Otsu described as an “explosion” as he rounded the long 100R right-hander, something that can be seen on on-board footage.
On the radio, Otsu yelled, “what the hell!” before quickly gathering his composure and saying: “I think it was a good race up until that point. The pace improved when I tried things to manage the tyre pressure and temperature. [The failure] can’t be helped. Thanks very much."
Reflecting on the race, Otsu said he was at least glad to have given the team (almost) a full race’s worth of data to look over for the first time since the Fuji curtain-raiser in April.
“The start was very good and we gained some positions, but the strategy didn’t work well and the pace wasn’t that good compared to the cars around us,” reflected Otsu.
“But even when Oyu was driving the car the race pace dropping has been an issue, so I tried various things to combat that and the pace recovered slightly in the second half. I hope that’s something that will help the team in future.
“It felt like I still have the ability to fight, and the start is one of my weapons. It’s always tough to jump in the car mid-season, but even then I would have liked to put everything together.”
After his previous outing for Mugen ended with a disappointing 14th-place finish following a crash in qualifying, Otsu arguably redeemed himself to a certain extent at Fuji, and certainly the pressure of driving for TGM wouldn’t have been anywhere near the level he experienced at Autopolis when he had to fill in for Nojiri in the #1 car.
The fact he was enlisted to help B-Max out of its current slump during the in-season test at Fuji last month was another encouraging sign that Otsu remains firmly on Honda's radar for a 2024 drive.
“It’s been good to keep myself sharp,” said Otsu. “I did a good time in Q1, so I hope that is recognised. Even though it was just a one-off appearance, it really felt like we had the potential to fight towards the front. I really want to come back [full-time] next year.”
