The Latest Breaking News from Super Formula

The two-time champion was beaten in a straight fight by Lawson in Saturday’s curtain-raiser, although Nojiri struck back with a straightforward win from pole in the second race.

From sixth on the grid, Kondo Racing man Yamashita finished third on Sunday behind Tomoki Nojiri and Sho Tsuboi, albeit finishing fourth on the road and gaining a place from Liam Lawson’s penalty.

A 90-minute session had been planned for Friday, starting at 1.40pm local time, ahead of Saturday's opening race of 2023 campaign.

The OTS, which works in a similar way to IndyCar's push-to-pass system, has been available for up to 200 seconds per race since the 2021 season.

After two seasons as a ‘super-sub’ in the Honda Super Formula stable, 2022 was supposed to mark the year that Sasahara became part of the furniture at the Sakura brand. Handed the chance to join Tomoki Nojiri at Team Mugen, Sasahara finally had the platform he had so desperately craved…

Masahiko Kondo, who has been chosen to take over as chairman of Super Formula organiser JRP from Satoru Nakajima, mentioned the prospect of expanding the single-seater series beyond Japan’s borders in a press conference at Suzuka earlier this month.

The son of one-time Formula 1 grand prix winner Jarno is focusing on Japan’s second-tier single-seater series for his third season in car racing after becoming a part of the Toyota-aligned TOM’S squad’s four-car line-up.

Long-time Toyota driver Oshima is going into his fourth season with the one-car Rookie squad, which failed to score points in 2022 and finished at the bottom of the teams' standings.

Hyman's #51 B-Max Racing machine is being engineered by Australian Neff, the owner of the TJ Speed Motorsports outfit that took the British driver to last year's Formula Regional Americas title and now has a three-car entry in the USF Pro Series (formerly Indy Pro 2000).