The 2020 Japanese Super Formula Championship was the forty-eighth season of premier Japanese open-wheel motor racing, and the eighth under the moniker of Super Formula.
Teams and drivers Every Honda-powered car used a Honda HR-414E engine and every Toyota-powered car used a Toyota RI4A engine. Team Engine DriverRounds Vantelin Team TOM’S Toyota 1 Nick Cassidy All 36 Kazuki Nakajima 1, 3, 5–7 Ritomo Miyata 2, 4 Kondo Racing Toyota 3 Kenta Yamashita 1, 3–7 Sena Sakaguchi 2 4 Sacha Fenestraz All Docomo Team Dandelion Racing Honda 5 Naoki YamamotoAll 6 Nirei FukuzumiAll carrozzeria Team KCMG Toyota 7 Kamui Kobayashi1, 3, 5–7 Yuichi Nakayama2, 4 18 Yuji KunimotoAll Drago Corse with ThreeBond Honda 12 Tatiana Calderón1, 4–7 Koudai Tsukakoshi2–3 ROOKIE Racing Toyota 14 Kazuya OshimaAll JMS P.mu/Cerumo・INGING 38 Hiroaki IshiuraAll 39 Sho TsuboiAll Team Mugen Honda15 Ukyo SasaharaAll 16 Tomoki NojiriAll Itochu Enex Team Impul Toyota 19 Yuhi SekiguchiAll 20 Ryō HirakawaAll Buzz Racing with B-MAX Honda50 Teppei Natori1 Mitsunori Takaboshi2 Sérgio Sette Câmara3 Nobuharu Matsushita4–7 51 Charles Milesi4–7 TCS Nakajima Racing Honda 64 Tadasuke Makino1–6 Hiroki Otsu7 65 Toshiki OyuAll
Team changes Ryo Michigami's Drago Corse returns to the championship in partnership with ThreeBond. This marks the team's first appearance in the championship since 2016. Team LeMans left the championship at the end of 2019. This means that 2020 was the first season since 1988 where Team LeMans was not represented. Their place was filled by KCMG and Cerumo Motorsport which both added one car each. Cerumo's third car was entered as ROOKIE Racing. Real Racing announced it has withdrawn from the 2020 season.
Driver changes
Tatiana Calderón moves to the revived Drago Corse team from the FIA Formula 2 Championship, becoming the first female driver in the current Super Formula era and the first in top level Japanese open-wheel racing since Ireland's Sarah Kavanagh entered two races in the 1997 Formula Nippon Championship. Jüri Vips was scheduled to contest the full season with Team Mugen, having joined the team at the final round of the 2019 Championship as a replacement for Patricio O'Ward. Vips missed the opening rounds at Motegi and Okayama due to his participation in the FIA Formula 2 Championship, and was replaced by Ukyo Sasahara on both occasions. Pandemic-related travel issues further prevented Vips from arriving in Japan, so Sasahara again filled in at Sportsland Sugo. Ahead of the fourth round at Autopolis, it was announced that Sasahara would keep the seat for the remainder of the season. Pietro Fittipaldi was initially confirmed in the #50 B-MAX entry. Fittipaldi had previously competed in the first round of the 2018 Championship before an injury prevented his return. However, on the eve of a pre-season test at Fuji Speedway, it was announced that Sérgio Sette Câmara would instead occupy the seat, in what was described as a "late reshuffle of race seats due to conflicting sponsors' interests". Sette Câmara will be joined by Charles Milesi, who moves up from the Japanese Formula 3 Championship. B-Max's 2019 drivers Lucas Auer and Harrison Newey left the series, both moving to the DTM with BMW and Audi respectively. Neither driver raced at Motegi with Teppei Natori driving the sole B-Max Dallara. Alex Palou left Nakajima Racing to move to IndyCar with Dale Coyne Racing. He was replaced by Japanese F3 and Euroformula Open race winner Toshiki Oyu. 2019 Japanese Formula 3 Champion Sacha Fenestraz replaces Yuji Kunimoto at Kondo Racing. Kunimoto will drive the newly acquired second car at Team KCMG. Following the departure of Team LeMans, Kazuya Oshima moved to the new ROOKIE Racing entry.
Mid-season changes Sergio Sette Câmara, and Charles Milesi unable to travel to Japan for the season opener due to Japan's COVID-19 travel restrictions. B-Max have to run one car for the opening season with Teppei Natori as the driver choice for the number 50 car, and recruited Mitsunori Takaboshi for the second round. Tatiana Calderón, Kamui Kobayashi, Kazuki Nakajima, Kenta Yamashita, unable to compete for the second round of the season due to quarantine time after they participated in the 2020 24 Hours of Le Mans. Koudai Tsukakoshi, Yuichi Nakayama, Ritomo Miyata, Sena Sakaguchi covers for them respectively. Miyata, and Nakayama returns to compete in the fourth round as Kobayashi, and Nakajima unavailable due to FIA World Endurance Championship commitment. Charles Milesi able to compete in the series from the fourth round onwards, and Nobuharu Matsushita takes over Sette Câmara's seat for the remainder of the season. Tadasuke Makino have to miss the last round of the season after suffered meningitis. Hiroki Otsu replaces Makino.
Race calendar The provisional calendar with seven rounds was announced in July 2019. However, in September 2019 the calendar was updated to have the Suzuka Circuit as the first round rather than the Fuji Speedway. The final round at Suzuka Circuit was pushed back 2 weeks to avoid a schedule conflict with the FIA World Endurance Championship, which competes at Fuji Speedway on 1 November. After multiple postponements due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a revised calendar was announced on 9 June 2020 that now sees the season starting in August and running until December.
Round Circuit Date 1 Twin Ring Motegi 30 August 2 Okayama International Circuit 27 September 3Sportsland SUGO 18 October 4Autopolis 15 November 5 Suzuka Circuit 5 December 6 6 December 7Fuji Speedway 20 December
On 2 March 2020, the season opener at Suzuka Circuit was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. On 7 April 2020, it was announced that the season finale would become a double-header, effectively reestablishing the second round at Suzuka. The rounds at Fuji Speedway and Autopolis were postponed on 18 March 2020 and 31 March 2020 respectively, both also because of the virus. On 24 April 2020, the former fourth round at Sportsland SUGO was also postponed to a so far unannounced date because of the ongoing pandemic.
Results Season summary Round Circuit Pole position Fastest lap Winning driver Winning team 1 Twin Ring Motegi Ryō Hirakawa Kamui Kobayashi Ryō Hirakawa Itochu Enex Team Impul 2 Okayama International Circuit Ryō Hirakawa Nick Cassidy Sho Tsuboi JMS P.mu/Cerumo・INGING 3 Sportsland SUGO Sérgio Sette Câmara Nick Cassidy Nick Cassidy Vantelin Team TOM’S 4 Autopolis Tomoki Nojiri Naoki Yamamoto Tomoki Nojiri Team Mugen 5 Suzuka Circuit I Naoki Yamamoto Naoki Yamamoto Naoki Yamamoto Docomo Team Dandelion Racing 6 Suzuka Circuit II Nick Cassidy Nirei Fukuzumi Toshiki Oyu TCS Nakajima Racing 7 Fuji Speedway Tomoki Nojiri Nirei Fukuzumi Sho Tsuboi JMS P.mu/Cerumo・INGING
Championship standings Scoring system For the 2020 season, the points system has been overhauled to be more in-line with Super GT. The final points standings only include the five best results. Additionally, bonus points are no longer available for the final race of the season. Points are also given to the top three drivers of qualifying as opposed to just points for pole position. Note that these qualifying points do not count towards the teams' championship.
Race points Position 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th 10th Points 20 15 11 8 6 5 4 3 2 1 Qualifying points Position 1st 2nd 3rd Points 3 2 1
Drivers' Championship
Driver MOT OKA SUG AUT SUZ1 SUZ2 FUJPoints 1 Naoki Yamamoto 2 Ryō Hirakawa 3 Sho Tsuboi 4 Nick Cassidy 5 Tomoki Nojiri 6 Toshiki Oyu 7 Kenta Yamashita 8 Nirei Fukuzumi 9 Yuji Kunimoto 10 Hiroaki Ishiura 11 Kazuki Nakajima 12 Tadasuke Makino 13 Sacha Fenestraz 14 Yuhi Sekiguchi 15 Nobuharu Matsushita 16 Kamui Kobayashi 17 Ritomo Miyata 18 Ukyo Sasahara 19 Kazuya Oshima 20 Sérgio Sette Câmara 21 Charles Milesi 22 Yuichi Nakayama 23 Tatiana Calderón 24 Koudai Tsukakoshi 25 Hiroki Otsu 26 Mitsunori Takaboshi — Teppei Natori — Sena Sakaguchi Driver MOT OKA SUG AUT SUZ1 SUZ2 FUJPointsBold – Pole Italics – Fastest Lap 1 – 3 Points for Pole 2 – 2 Points for P2 3 – 1 Points for P3
Teams' Championship Team MOT OKA SUG AUT SUZ1 SUZ2 FUJPoints 1 Vantelin Team TOM’S 1 36 2 JMS P.mu/Cerumo・INGING 38 39 3 Docomo Team Dandelion Racing 5 6 4 Itochu Enex Team Impul 19 69 20 5 TCS Nakajima Racing 64 65 6 Kondo Racing 3 4 7 Team Mugen 15 16 8 carrozzeria Team KCMG 7 37 18 9 Buzz Racing with B-MAX 50 16 51 10 ROOKIE Racing 14 5 11 Drago Corse with ThreeBond 12 0Team MOT OKA SUG AUT SUZ1 SUZ2 FUJPoints
Notes
References
External links Japanese Championship Super Formula official website