The Latest Breaking News from Ritomo Miyata

With just a few minutes to go in the two-hour afternoon session, Yamamoto set a time of 1m22.464s in his Honda-powered SF23, beating Tomoki Nojiri’s morning benchmark by 0.046s.

The news that Giuliano Alesi is stepping down from his TOM’S Super Formula drive was both surprising and unsurprising in equal measure. Few expected he would survive beyond the end of 2023 with his current form, but equally a mid-season change of drivers didn’t seem to be on the cards…

The official results for the third round of the 2023 season were released on Monday, more than a week on from the 450km event, with no changes from the revised provisional results that were published late on the evening of the race.

Katsumasa Chiyo and Mitsunori Takaboshi were initially declared the winners of the 450km race after it was cut short for a huge crash involving the sister NISMO car of Tsugio Matsuda and the JLOC Lamborghini Huracan of Kosuke Matsuura.

The #3 Nissan Z of Katsumasa Chiyo and Mitsunori Takaboshi was ahead on the road at the time of Matsuda's huge crash on lap 59 of 77 by virtue of not yet having completed its second refuelling stop.

Last weekend at Autopolis, the Inging driver scored his first pole in 35 attempts, and went on to finish third, marking his third trip to the podium in succession.

Around 15 laps into the 41-lap race at the flowing Kyushu track, Lawson’s decision to pit early looked like it wasn’t going to pay dividends. With the majority of drivers opting to extend their first stints amid fears of heavy tyre degradation, the Mugen driver soon caught up to a…

Lawson scored his second win in the Japanese single-seater series in four starts in Sunday’s race at Autopolis, vaulting himself into the championship lead.

Capitalising on the absence of Mugen team-mate and reigning champion Tomoki Nojiri, Lawson recovered from a poor start to clinch victory by 1.2 seconds in the fourth round of the season, despite a late safety car putting him at a disadvantage to his immediate rivals.