was a national motor racing championship that takes place in Japan. It is a junior-level feeder formula that uses small single seater Formula Three chassis.

As a result of Formula 3 naming regulations by the FIA, on 13 August 2019, series promoter Japan Race Promotion (jp), split from the FIA Formula Regional regulations and rebranded their series as Super Formula Lights to comply with FIA regulations, and remain as the Super Formula feeder championship since the series is prohibited from using "Formula 3" (which belongs to the FIA for the European-based FIA Formula 3 Championship) and "Formula Regional" (which all regional Formula 3 series are being renamed by the 2020 season, first with the Formula Regional European Championship in 2019 for Europe, and the renaming of the North American F3 championship from Formula 3 Americas to Formula Regional Americas Championship). The Series will adopt Euroformula Open Championship regulations.

Subsequently, the FIA awarded rights to a Formula Regional championship in Japan to K2, promoters of the F4 Japanese Championship, which will name their series the Formula Regional Japanese Championship.

With the rebranding of the series to Super Formula Lights, the Japanese Formula 3 championship officially ended after 41 years. The Japan Formula 3 Association will continue to run the new championship as stated on 28 February 2020.

History The first Formula Three championship to take place in Japan was held by Nippon Formula 3 Association (Japanese Formula 3 Association) in 1979, which was won by Toshio Suzuki. By 1981, it had evolved into a national-level series, the Japanese Championship, and was organised by the Japan Automobile Federation (JAF).

Foreign drivers' participation has increased since the 1980s and the majority of champions have been foreign since the beginning of the 1990s.

Since 2008 a two-tier championship system was adopted as a bid to increase driver and team participation. The "Championship" class was open to cars conforming to the current three-year cycle, whilst the lower tier "National" class was open to cars meeting the previous three-year cycle and using the spec Toyota engine.

Prior to the changing of super license requirements for the 2016 Formula One season onward, the series used to be one of the four major Formula Three championships that guaranteed the winner an FIA Super Licence. Under the new requirements the winner of the championship earns 10 points towards their super license, with drivers finishing from 2nd to 5th in the final standings receiving a smaller number of points.

Equipment

Like most Formula Three championships, competitors in the Japanese Championship are permitted to use only eligible chassis.

Chassis: Only Dallara chassis have been used since 2007. In the past, March, Reynard, Ralt, and Japanese manufacturers like TOM'S and Dome also had supplied chassis. Engines: Engines are supplied by Toyota-TOM'S, Mugen-Honda, Toda Racing and ThreeBond (Nissan). Volkswagen, HKS (Mitsubishi), Fiat and Opel had previously supplied engines. Tyres: Hankook supplied tyres in 2009 as the series' sole supplier. Bridgestone, Dunlop and Yokohama had supplied tyres until 1987. In 1988, Bridgestone took place of the series' sole tyre supplier and supplied until 2008.

Champions SeasonChampionNational Class Champion Toshio Suzuki Heros Racing not held Gallop Racing Osamu Nakako Umeda Racing 1984 Shuji Hyoudo 1985 Le Garage Cox Racing 1986 Akio Morimoto LeMans Company 1987 Ross Cheever TOM'S 1988 Akihiko Nakaya Le Garage Cox Racing 1989 Masahiko Kageyama Leyton House Racing 1990 Naoki Hattori Le Garage Cox Racing 1991 Paulo Carcasci TOM'S Anthony Reid 1993 Tom Kristensen TOM'S 1994 Michael Krumm TOM'S 1995 Pedro de la Rosa TOM'S 1996 Juichi Wakisaka Nakajima Racing 1997 Tom Coronel TOM'S Peter Dumbreck TOM'S Darren Manning TOM'S 2000 Sébastien Philippe Mugen Dome Project 2001 Benoît Tréluyer TOM'S 2002 Takashi Kogure Dome Racing Team 2003 James Courtney TOM'S 2004 Ronnie Quintarelli Inging 2005 João Paulo de Oliveira TOM'S 2006 Adrian Sutil TOM'S 2007 Kazuya Oshima TOM'S 2008 Carlo van Dam TOM'S Hideki Yamauchi 2009 Marcus Ericsson TOM'S Naoki Yamamoto 2010 Yuji Kunimoto TOM'S Takashi Kobayashi 2011 Yuhi Sekiguchi ThreeBond Racing Katsumasa Chiyo 2012 Ryo Hirakawa RSS Daiki Sasaki 2013 Yuichi Nakayama TOM'S Mitsunori Takaboshi 2014 Nobuharu Matsushita TOM'S Hiroshi Koizumi 2015 Nick Cassidy TOM'S Ryo Ogawa 2016 Kenta Yamashita TOM'S Yoshiaki Katayama 2017 Mitsunori Takaboshi B-MAX Racing Team 'Dragon' 2018 Sho Tsuboi TOM'S Jake Parsons 2019 Sacha Fenestraz B-Max Racing Team with Motopark 'Dragon'

References

External links Japan Formula 3 official website – Japanese / English All-Japan Formula 3 Championship at forix.com