In a chaotic opening round of the 2025 Super Formula season, Juju Noda kept herself out of trouble, gaining valuable experience for series newcomers Triple Tree Racing and securing a 16th-place finish in race one.
Juju Noda gained valuable experience in the opening round of the 2025 Super Formula season at Suzuka, finishing 16th in race one as chaos ensued around her.
Following a learning-oriented rookie season in 2024 with TGM Grand Prix, where she scored a best result of 12th in the season-ending Suzuka round, Noda joined Triple Tree Racing during the winter to continue her tenure in the series, as she seeked a new challenge.
The weekend started off on a challenging note, as Noda finished 21st in both free practice sessions, where she set a best time of 1:39.560 in the first session.
However, fortunes turned around for the first qualifying session of the year, where Noda initially warmed up the tyres quickly and was near the top of the board until the timer ran out and with everyone setting their best lap times, Noda could only muster a 1:39.908, which would be the ninth fastest time in Q1's Group A.
Starting 18th for race one, Noda had a clean start and kept her starting position as the safety car was deployed mid-way through the opening lap as Atsushi Miyake crashed out of the race before Degner-1 corner, causing the neutralization.
On the restart, Ayumu Iwasa, who had taken the lead from Mugen teammate Tomoki Nojiri at the start, led the way as the race saw its first few laps of green flag racing.
Behind Iwasa, TGMGP's Kazuto Kotaka and Cerumo/INGING's Toshiki Oyu began exchanging positions as they battled for tenth place, but it all came to blows for them as Kotaka lost control of his car while being alongside Oyu at turn four, which sent the TGMGP driver in the wall and the latter was forced to stop on track with a left-rear puncture, causing another safety car to be called out on track.
As Noda moved up to 16th position, during the safety car period everyone served their mandatory pit stop. However things weren't smooth for the Docomo Dandelion car of Tadasuke Makino, who suffered a slow pit stop and exited the pits at the back of the field, which saw Noda jump up to 15th before the restart.
On the second restart, Iwasa lead from Kakunoshin Ohta and Ren Sato, but the order quickly changed as Ohta wasted no time in overtaking Iwasa around the outside of turn one to take the lead of the race.
Behind them, Nirei Fukuzumi and Hibiki Taira collided, which resulted in a puncture for the former, sending him into a spin in front of Igor Fraga, who had nowhere to go and lightly tapped the KCMG of Fukuzumi.
Despite being overtaken by Tadasuke Makino, Juju Noda capitalized on the incident to retain 15th place as the third safety car period of the race rolled around.
Following the third restart, Ohta was able to hold off Iwasa's attacks to claim his fourth career win and first of the season ahead of the Mugen driver and Ren Sato.
Behind them, Noda was overtaken by Syun Koide and Seita Nonaka to cross the line in 17th place in what was a clean debut for Triple Tree Racing. After the race, Noda was given a drive-through penalty for being too fast in the pits, however, she gained a position as Seita Nonaka was given a 65-second penalty, meaning Noda climbed to 16th in the final results.
On Sunday, Noda took part in the second round of qualifying. Running in group B, Juju was once again near the top as everyone warmed up their tyres, but struggled to build up on early promises as she set a 1:38.814, the eleventh best time in her group.
From 21st on the grid, Noda was overtaken by Mitsunori Takaboshi at the start and was demoted to 22nd in the early stages.
At the front, Tomoki Nojiri once again started on pole and was overtaken by Ayumu Iwasa before the first corner as he fell into the clutches of Tadasuke Makino, who went from fifth to third at the start.
With the leaders pitting early, Nojiri found himself being overtaken by Kakunoshin Ohta for the virtual lead of the race just a few laps after pitting on lap three.
With many drivers opting to pit early, Noda ran as high as 12th before pitting around the halfway mark of the race.
As the top nine cars made their mandatory pit stop around lap 20, Ohta overtook Tadasuke Makino for the lead in the Esses and began to build up a gap as he tried to compensate for a five-second penalty for exceeding track limits.
As Ohta led from Makino and Tsuboi, a safety car was deployed in the closing stages of the race when Zak O'Sullivan collided with Seita Nonaka, which sent the Brit into a spin and stopped on the grass outside of Turn three.
With the safety car ending the race, Makino inherited the win from Ohta, who dropped to 12th, followed by Sho Tsuboi and points leader Ayumu Iwasa.
Behind them, Noda had a quiet second half of the race, finishing 21st as she struggled for pace following her pit stop, which saw her get lapped shortly before the safety car was called on track. Having experimented with setup changes following Saturday's race - and with a bolder tyres pit strategy that eventually didn't pay off, it was still a learning opportunity for the whole team ahead of the following rounds.
While the second race was a more frustrating one, Noda demonstrated her ability to stay close with veterans of the series on Saturday and will be aiming to continue to build on the promising performance heading into the next round of the season, which will be held at Motegi on 18–20 April.
Commentaires