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Australia

Okayama Super Formula: Ishiura wins red-flagged race, Vandoorne 12th

Team Inging’s Hiroaki Ishiura won the second race of the Super Formula season at Okayama, which was prematurely brought to a halt due to treacherous weather conditions.

Hiroaki Ishiura, Cerumo Inging

Hiroaki Ishiura, Cerumo Inging

Yasushi Ishihara

Kazuki Nakajima, Team Tom's and Takuya Izawa, Real Racing
Daisuke Nakajima, Nakajima Racing
Naoki Yamamoto, Team Mugen
Hiroaki Ishiura, Cerumo Inging and Hirohide Hamashima
Takashi Kogure, Drago Cose
Tomoki Nojiri, Dandelion Racing
Takuya Izawa, Real Racing
Koudai Tsukakoshi, Real Racing
James Rossiter, Kondo Racing
Narain Karthikeyan, Team LeMans
Hiroaki Ishiura, Cerumo Inging
William Buller, Kondo Racing

In stark contrast to Saturday’s sunny qualifying, the race started amid heavy rain showers behind the safety car.

Several drivers were caught out as positions changed every lap, despite the race being neutralised by the aforementioned safety car.

The race was eventually red-flagged on Lap 8, with a decision to not resume taken soon after.

At the start, Inging’s Ishiura held on to his lead from Impul driver Joao Paulo de Oliveira until Lap 5 when the latter parked his car with mechanical troubles.

De Oliveira's retirement promoted the Real Racing duo of Koudai Tsukakoshi and Takuya Izawa into second and third positions.

Behind, Tomoki Nojiri was classified in fourth place ahead of Race 1 winner Naoki Yamamoto and fellow Japanese drivers Yuji Kunimoto and Daisuke Nakajima.

Andre Lotterer and James Rossiter took advantage of the mess to finish in eighth and ninth, the former picking up the last point.

Meanwhile, McLaren F1 reserve Stoffel Vandoorne pitted under the safety car on Lap 3 for a quick dash of fuel, dropping to last position as a result.

However, by the time the race was suspended on Lap 8, the Belgian driver had moved up to 12th position.

Kamui Kobayashi was hit by electrical issues, forcing the former F1 driver to make as many as three pitstops - one involving a steering wheel change - en route to a lowly 18th place finish.

Ahead of Kobayashi was his Toyota WEC teammate Kazuki Nakajima in 17th while Indian Narain Karthikeyan finished 16th.

As per the regulations, with the lead driver completing two laps but less than 75 percent of the race distance, only half points were awarded to the top eight drivers.

Race results:

PosDriverTeamGap
1
 Hiroaki Ishiura
INGING
-
2
 Koudai Tsukakoshi
REAL RACING
0.718
3
 Takuya Izawa
REAL RACING
1.749
4
 Tomoki Nojiri
DANDELION RACING
2.525
5
 Naoki Yamamoto
TEAMMUGEN
3.841
6
 Yuji Kunimoto
INGING
5.408
7
 Daisuke Nakajima
NAKAJIMA RACING
6.442
8
 Andre Lotterer
TEAM TOM’S
8.369
9
 James Rossiter
KONDO RACING
9.677
10
 Yuichi Nakayama
KCMG
10.753
11
 William Buller
KONDO RACING
12.188
12
 Stoffel Vandoorne
DANDELION RACING
14.133
13
 Yuhi Sekiguchi
TEAM IMPUL
17.088
14
 Bertrand Baguette
NAKAJIMA RACING
17.676
15
Takashi Kogure
DRAGO CORSE
19.565
16
 Narain Karthikeyan
TEAM LEMANS
20.596
17
 Kazuki Nakajima
VANTELIN TEAM TOM’S
21.431
18
 Kamui Kobayashi
TEAM LEMANS
25.388
Ret
 Joao Paulo de Oliveira
TEAM IMPUL
 

 

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Edition

Australia