Nick Cassidy’s third round of the Super Formula Series came to an abrupt halt after clashing with Kamui Kobayashi in the opening laps of the 250km race, which was eventually won by Hiroaki Ishiura.
Yuji Kunimoto, who started from pole position, got off to a clean start to the 55 lap main event. During lap 1, Cassidy, who started in the 7th grid, went off the track, bringing an unfortunate close to the New Zealander’s day. At that point in the race, it was Kunimoto in the lead, followed by Yuhi Sekiguchi in 2nd, and Kunimoto’s teammate Hiroaki Ishiura in 3rd. Andre Lotterer who started in P12 had jumped up 5 spots into 7th.
“I’m really disappointed as car felt good on high fuel and was really strong in race trim in the mornings practice,” Cassidy commented. “The race was a missed opportunity but it’s all part of the learning and we learnt a lot as a team this weekend.”
By lap 44, Ishiura had taken the lead followed by Rosenqvist in 2nd, Lotterer in 3rd, followed by Sekiguchi–who had to fight off Pierre Gasly’s fierce attack over several of the remaining laps in the race. Although this is how they would finish, the big news of the day was Rosenqvist’s first podium in Super Formula. He also recorded the fastest lap of the day on lap 46 of 1’25.581 sec
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