The 2024 Formula Regional Japanese Championship was a multi-event, Formula Regionalopen-wheel single seatermotor racing championship held in Japan. The drivers competed in Formula Regional cars that conform to the FIA Formula Regional regulations for the championship. This was the fifth season of the series, promoted by K2 Planet, and the 46th overall season of an FIA ladder series (dating to the 1979 Japanese Formula 3 Championship).[1]
The season started on 9 March at Suzuka International Racing Course and ran over six weekends, until 13 October.[2] All three titles were wrapped up at the penultimate round of the season, with Michael Sauter becoming the first foreign driver to win the Drivers' Championship, while his team Birth Racing Project【BRP】took the Teams' Championship and N-SPEED driver "Yugo" topped the Masters' class.
Teams and drivers
All teams and drivers competed using the Dome F111/3 Regional F3 car, powered by an Alfa Romeo engine and with Dunlop tires.[1]
The 2024 calendar was revealed in late September 2023 and comprised 14 races over six rounds.[2] The championship supported Super Formula for the first time in its history.
The 2024 season began at Suzuka with 13 cars, the highest number in three years, and Bionic Jack’s Kizuku Hirota, BRP’s Michael Sauter and Sutekina’s Jiei Okuzumi shared pole positions. The first race saw multiple drivers get caught out by slippery track conditions, with poleman Hirota among them as he spun and rejoined in seventh. This saw Okuzumi inherit the lead and he held on through multiple safety car interruptions to win ahead of TOM'S’s Yoshiaki Nakamura and Bionic Jack’s Jesse Lacey. Conditions were better in race two, and Sauter converted his pole position into a win by eleven seconds over Okuzumi and Hirota. The final race began with the BRP teammates Sauter and Sebastian Manson fighting over second, with the latter initially taking the place before Sauter took it back. A safety car restart with three laps to go then allowed Sauter to close up to leader Okuzumi to overtake him and win the race. Still, with Sauter not finishing the first race, Okuzumi led the championship by eleven points after the first triple-header.[13]
Eight cars turned up at Sugo, where Sutekina’s debutant Fuma Horio and Manson took the pole positions. Horio had a bad start to the first race, but managed to keep ahead of Sauter and soon started building a gap. This gap grew to twelve seconds across the uninterrupted race, with Lacey coming home third, a further five seconds back. Race two saw Horio continue his strong pace. He took the lead from Manson right at the start, but this time was unable to build a similar gap. Manson kept close to him, but was unable to muster an attack on the lead. Sauter had a quiet race to take another podium in third. With championship leader Okuzumi not entering the round, Sauter took the championship lead by 22 points, while Horio’s double win saw him end his debut weekend fourth in the standings.[14]
Round three at Okayama saw Sauter dominate qualifying to take all three pole positions. He initially lost out to Lacey at the start of race one, before the Australian spun on a safety car restart. Nakamura took over first place, but Sauter kept close to him and made a move on him on lap eleven, taking the lead and winning the race. Horio took third, before clutch issues forced him to miss the second race. That encounter was held in wet conditions, with Sauter able to build a gap and finish first as Lacey and Nakamura fought behind him. A jump-start penalty for Sauter then saw him demoted to second. Manson made a late move on Nakamura, forcing the Japanese into retirement. He was handed a 30-second penalty, but still came third as every other driver was a lap down. Race three saw Sauter again lose the lead to Lacey at the start, but he fought back to reclaim it. Lacey was then also handed a jump-start penalty, which saw him drop to fourth behind Manson and PONOS’s Yorikatsu Tsujiko. Sauter now had a 53-point lead over Manson.[15]
Second half
The second half of the season began at Motegi with Manson taking pole position for the first race. He held his lead all race, while Sauter behind him first dropped behind Horio before taking second place back on the penultimate lap. Manson then ran off track in the final corner, handing Sauter the lead and the win, before rejoining unsafely, leading to Horio heavily crashing into him after the finish line. Manson was handed a penalty that dropped him to sixth, elevating Lacey onto the podium. Race two was a smoother affair, with Sauter taking pole position by over half a second before leading every lap and winning by 14 seconds. Manson in second was kept in check by Horio and others, but no one managed to pass him. His double win saw Sauter leave Motegi with a 77-point cushion to his nearest rival.[16]
The championship culminated in two rounds at Fuji Speedway, where the TGR-DC Racing School entered two Toyota juniors in Yuki Sano and Kazuhisa Urabe. They were immediately on pace, with Sano taking both pole positions. He dropped to third at the start of race one, behind Urabe and Sauter, before that pair then collided and Urabe retired. Sano, back in the lead, then went on to win ahead of HELM’s Anna Inotsume and Manson. Sauter was penalised and dropped to sixth, unable to clinch his championship. Race two saw Urabe again get by Sano, but it took only three corners before he was back in front. Nakamura then also got by Urabe to take second. Sauter had to retire with a clutch problem, but with Manson stuck in the midfield, the Swiss was crowned champion in the pits.[17]
Urabe and Sano were fastest again in qualifying for the final two races and took a pole position each. The former was immediately jumped by the latter at the start of the first race, and Sano controlled the race from that point on to win by five seconds. Urabe came second in a largely uneventful race, with DELiGHTWORKS Racing’s Yugo Iwasawa completing the podium on his return to the series. With Sano starting the second race from pole position, he did not have to overtake anyone and ended his four-race season with a fourth win that saw him take fifth place in the standings. Urabe took second again, unchallenged as Sauter in third had to fend off Iwasawa all race long. Manson finished his season with two eighth places, thereby claiming the runner-up spot in the championship.[18]
Sauter won six races and took four further podiums on his way to becoming FRJ’s first foreign champion. While he was dominant over some weekends, part-time drivers often came in and stole the show, like Horio at Sugo or Sano at the final four races, so the championship might have looked very different had these drivers done a full campaign. Away from the championship fight, FRJ supported Super Formula for the first time in its history, and was rewarded with its highest entry numbers in years at the start and the end of the season. Still entry numbers dropped to only eight drivers mid-season, with FRJ and Super Formula Lights continuing to fight for supremacy in Japan’s second tier of formula racing.
^ abcHirano, Ryuji (2024-07-30). "フォーミュラ・リージョナルの終盤2大会にTGR-DC RSが参戦。佐野雄城と卜部和久がドライブへ" [The TGR-DC RS will compete in the final two Formula Regional events. Yuki Sano and Kazuhisa Urabe will be driving]. Auto Sport Web. Retrieved 2024-07-30.
