Juju Noda reaches new highs in Super Formula season finale

Following an impressive final round of the Super Formula season, Juju Noda scored her best result in the championship in race one, securing a 12th-place finish after running as high as tenth during the race.

Photo credits: Noda Racing

Juju Noda enjoyed a very strong weekend in the Super Formula season finale at Suzuka, where she ran as high as tenth, finishing 12th in race one in a highly-competitive field in Japan's top single-seater championship.

Before this round, Noda had competed in the Euroformula Open Championship in 2023, where she became the first woman to win in the championship at Paul Ricard, while also competing in the Italian F2000 Championship, winning the title at season's end.

Going into 2024, Noda joined TGM Grand Prix for her first year of car-racing in Japan. Facing a steep hill to climb, she started racing in the Boss GP series, initially driving a Formula Renault 3.5 car, but later switching to a Dallara GP2/11 (former Formula 2 car) for the 2024 season to gain experience in faster cars before her Super Formula debut.

The weekend started off on a difficult note as Noda would struggle in the sole practice session of the weekend, finishing P21 with a 1:40.237 lap as the session ended.

Difficulties continued into qualifying as Noda wasn't able to advance into Q2, however found a second with her 1:39.209, set in the final minutes of qualifying, which were added to the original schedule after a red flag caused by Iori Kimura.

Photo credits: Noda Racing

Starting 20th, the TGM Grand Prix driver made a lightning start, avoiding the stalled Ayumu Iwasa and overtaking Hibiki Taira, Hiroki Otsu and Atsushi Miyake before the first corner. Despite Otsu overtaking her after a few laps, she was able to gain another position as Kazuto Kotaka spun under braking and fell to the back of the pack.

As the race went on, Noda was able to stay close to the cars ahead, showing impressive pace and gaining positions as a few drivers encountered mechanical problems and were forced to retire. On lap 19, Hibiki Taira lost his right rear tyre as he came out of the pits. With the tyre navigating the first two corners on its own, the safety car was deployed.

On the restart, Noda found herself 15th, but just three laps later a two-car crash happened right in front of her at the Spoon curve between Kazuya Oshima and Ukyo Sasahara. She was able to avoid the crash and pass three more cars to get up to tenth position as seven laps to go remained in the race.

Just before the safety car was called yet again, Noda was passed by Ayumu Iwasa and dropped to 11th place. On the restart, she was passed by Iori Kimura but was able to hold off KCMG's Kamui Kobayashi until the end to score her best result of the season, 12th-place.

"In the 8th round at Suzuka, we survived a rough race and reached our own highest ranking goal", Noda said of the race.

Photo credits: Noda Racing

On Sunday morning, the 10-minute second qualifying session saw Noda set a 1:41.039 to qualify 21st in slower conditions compared to Saturday.

Starting 21st for the final race of the season, Noda had a much quieter race, overtaking Hibiki Taira during the pit cycle and holding the Team Impul driver off for most of the second half of the race, until Taira found a way past with six laps to go. As Kakunoshin Ohta won the race, Sho Tsuboi won the Super Formula title and Juju Noda ended her rookie campaign in Japan with a 20th-place finish, becoming the first woman to complete an entire calendar year of Super Formula, along with finishing every race she started.

"In the final race of the next season we ran the full distance without Safety Car from the start to the final lap, and we had a battle for position with experienced drivers until the final lap", she said at the end of the weekend.

"The best time during the race was not far from the top group. I wanted to run about 20 more laps."

The Super Formula season started and ended at Suzuka and the 18-year old driver was always able to keep her car clean, gathering experience every session and improving weekend after weekend.

"Looking back at it, there were many pleasant and painful things", Noda said of her season.

“At the beginning of the season, I came into the Suzuka opener with no experience, and the goal was to finish on the lead lap, but at the end, I was able to run with more experienced drivers."

With private testing outlawed in Super Formula, Noda had a different approach to the race weekends, using every session available to learn the car and improve in her weak areas.

"In Super Formula testing runs were not allowed, and for me the race events were also practice, so in that sense, it was necessary to run more than one lap and grow", she said of her approach to race weekends.

Noda's approach paid off over the long term, with her pace steadily improving round after round, with the second Suzuka round being her best showing as she remained close to more experienced drivers throughout both races.

While the second race wasn't what Noda hoped, race one showed her full potential and Juju will be aiming to build on this strong perfomance going into 2025 as her future in the championships looks uncertain as TGM Grand Prix's 2-car effort is under threat as the team is looking for more financial backing for the future.