It may appear like a fairy tale. Kiwi driver Nick Cassidy struggled for pace leading up to the opening round of the 2019 Super Formula season at Suzuka in Japan. His new team, Vantelin Team TOM’S Toyota, had one of their worst seasons in 2018 so needs to improve. Cassidy lacked pace in practice and could only qualify 12th on the grid.
Yet he went on to win the race.
A fairy tale. No, not at all.
I caught up with Nick this week and asked him how much was luck and how much was strategy?
“I would say mostly it was strategy and being quick at the right times, which it always is a little bit like that in Super Formula.
“When you are in a train of cars, your pace doesn’t really matter so much. However, when you are in clean air it is really important to be the fastest car on track more or less if you are going to make that strategy work.
Cassidy pitted early (lap six of 43), the first to do so in the race, changing from the slower medium to soft tyres. This was a key decision that propelled him to the front of the field.
“My out lap and the next lap and a half were ‘free’, without any cars. I might not have set fastest lap but the laps were two or three seconds quicker than the mid-field where I was running at that point.
“When the safety car came out later after I pitted, I had already clawed back maybe seven or eight seconds on that whole group I was in so I jumped them (when they pitted) which was the most important point (of the race). So it didn’t matter if the safety car came out or not because I was ahead anyway.
“Where the safety-car worked for me was with Kobyashi! He was starting on the soft tyre and I hadn’t jumped him which meant he had to do a pitstop after the safety-car which gave me the win. We were on for a podium anyway.”
The tyres this year are new to Super Formula. Generally they have a different working temperature range which can be difficult to read. Sometimes the soft will work well, sometimes it is the medium. When the soft tyre works well it is faster than the medium while the degradation is the same.
“It is tricky to work out strategy as you just don’t know if you are going to be in that window or not.”
Cassidy still had to look after his tyres for 37-laps of the race!
“I was comfortable doing that. I had done the same strategy in Sugo last year.”
At Sportsland Sugo at the end of May 2018, Cassidy finished second in the race having struggled in qualifying (In 2017 he put the car on pole). Starting 11th he had nothing to lose in a strategy adopted for the race. This saw him dive into the pits after just three laps for a change from medium to soft tyres, a risky move that worked out to his advantage later in the race after 63 laps on the soft tyre.
“I knew what was expected but Suzuka is a circuit where you can struggle to make the tyre last. It was going to be risky but starting 12th I had nothing to lose so I pushed to give that a go.”
So is track experience another important key?
“I definitely feel that track experience is on my side, I feel like a local. However, many of the ‘rookies’ this year are testing at all the tracks in F3 cars anyway. It’s not like they are rocking up to the track for the first time.
“Seventy-five percent of the field are like me, who have been here for a few years doing both Super Formula and Super GT.”
Last season Cassidy competed in Super Formula with KONDO Racing. This year he has moved to the Vantelin Team TOM’S Toyota.
“The huge thing for me is that Toyota have always put their top drivers in their top teams so for me to get that shot is a pretty big thing. At the same time I am now team mate’s with Kazuki Nakajima where I can show my performance against him.”
There’s a growing history of Cassidy achieving results through a thought-out strategy.
“I don’t think that I have an advantage going forwards at all. The strategy for this year is quite straight forward, for everyone, especially now we have all done one race.
“What has been key to me over the last year and a half, is that I have always had a very strong race pace. Honda have always had an edge in qualifying. For us (Toyota) to be starting on the front row is difficult so you have to be looking at different strategy options. You know that if the guy on pole is starting on a soft tyre and you go on the same strategy as him it will be difficult to win the race. So that’s where it comes to looking at different options and using your car speed.
“At the same time, if you don’t have race speed it doesn’t matter what your strategy. It’s about strategy but also about being focused on your race speed.”
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