Takashi KOGURE (Nakajima Racing) Score Upset Victory !

No.32 Takashi Kogure (NAKAJIMA RACING)
Weather 2010-04-18 □: Fine | Course: Dry | Started: 18 ° Temperature / track temperature 32 degrees

The opening round of Formula Nippon 2010 was held on 18th April at Suzuka International Circuit, Mie-Prefecture, Japan. The Gathering of over 51,500 spectators total for the weekend were attracted and excited to watch the close and heated battles that took place through out a good 37laps.

Takashi Kogure (JPN, Nakajima Racing), who dropped his position from pole position down to second in the opening lap, yet succeeded in regaining his initiative by a fantastic pit work which brought him a valuable victory in the opening round, followed by Joao Paolo de Olivereira (BRZ, Mobil1 Team IMPUL), who came back to the championship this year, as 2nd and Andre LOTTERER (GER, PETRONAS TEAM TOM’S) as 3rd.  For 4th came Kohei Hirate (JPN, Mobil1 Team IMPUL) who attracted the spectators by showing many thrilling overtaking scenes in the last few laps, for 5th came Tokuya Izawa (JPN, Docomo Team DANDELION), and for 6th came the series champion 2009, Loic Duval (FRA, Docomo Team DANDELION) who joined the new team to win another title in the 2010.

13:45p.m., a gentle spring sunshine warming up the atmosphere up to 18 Degrees Celsius, Track Temp. of 32 Degrees Celsius, the Formation-Lap for the finals took place on time, in which Kazuya Oshima (JPN, PETRONAL TEAM TOM’S) who qualified in 9th position was left behind due to his accidentally stalling the engine, ending up in rejoining his rivals on the very last grid of the race to start.

The signal blacks out for the opening round and all the drivers rushed into turn 1.  Oliveira took over the lead from his 2nd grid, while the pole sitter, Kogure, dropped his position down to 2nd.  Lotterer also dropped his position down to 4th due to his wheel spinning on the start, seeing aside Izawa jumping up to 3rd.  Kodai Tsukakoshi (JPN, HFDP Racing) and Duval followed.  In the latter group, Kei Cozzolino’s (JPN, Team LeMans) losing his balance in his turning into the S corners resulted in touching Katsuyuki Hiranaka (JPN, KCMG), which finished the race for them both.

Oliveira gains a gap little by little as he pushes to his follower, Kogure.  Behind these top two drivers, Izawa managed to keep his 3rd position despite the fact that he was pushed hard by Lotterer who was lapping faster, but also who was struggling with his losing front down force as the two machines get closer for Lotterer’s attempting to overtake Izawa. While Izawa and Lotterer were battling for the 3rd position, Tsukakoshi succeeded to catch up with them and was almost there to join in the heated battle.  Behind them, Yuji Ide (JPN, MOTUL team MUGEN), Noki Yamamoto (Nakajima Racing) and Hirate were battling closely for 5th position, which was taken by Hirate by his overtaking Yamamoto in Lap 5 and overtaking Ide in Lap 12.  Hirate also benefitted from Tsukakoshi’s slowing down due to the paddle shift system’s breaking down: Hirate jumping up to 5th.

Among the top 5 drivers, Lotterer decides to come into the pit first among all for new tires and a refuel after his pushing the car for 13 laps.  Lotterer’s initial race strategy was not to come into the pit so early, but explained later that overtaking Izawa could get have gotten tougher if he had to follow him when he was losing front down force as mentioned earlier.  The lap after Lotterer’s getting back on the track, Izawa comes into the pit as planned and succeeds to get back on the track in front of Lotterer, yet there was no way Izawa could block Lotterer on his out lap when the tire’s were still not warm enough. Lotterer, having passed Izawa in the spoon corner, his next aim was to catch up with the top groups.

For the top two drivers, the situation was not so easy for Kogure, who was chasing Oliveira by three seconds behind, and the gap was increasing as the race went on.  After 25 laps, their gaps were as big as four seconds when the race leader, Oliveira, decides to come into the pit.  Changing his rear tires only and refueling the gas, there was a silent moment and a second of hesitation among his team crew.
Looking at what had happened to Oliveira, Nakajima Racing instantly calls in Kogure for a pit stop. Kogure’s strategy then was to change the rear tires only and to refuel the car quickly in order to counter balance the gap by their pit works. Benefitting from his rival’s couple of second of hesitation and his flexibly changing the strategy, Kogure succeeds to get back on the track in front of Oliveira, now leading the race by having Oliveira a second behind. Meanwhile, another strong rival for the top two drivers were catching up by lapping one second faster, Lotterer. Having known the threat was not only Oliveira, the race leader, Kogure pushed his car to the limit and run away from the two followers until the checkered flag were woven toward him to praise his victory after a long 37 laps of close heated battle.

2nd No.19 JP · place de Oliveira /1st Takashi Kogure won No.32 /3rd No.36 ranked Andre Lotterer

First of all, I am very happy to have won the race and I want to thank the team.  I think we won this race by having a good strategy.  It was a great race.  It was all managed by the team and I was carrying fuel enough to last even with our optional strategy, “changing 2 tires”.  Of course, we did not know what Oliveira was going to do and how many tires he was going to change, but I wanted to keep up the pace and the team radio was saying that there was a chance.  Therefore, even though I received a flat spot on the front tire and could not push hard enough, I tried to stick with him.  After that, the pit stop was absolutely perfect and I was safely back on track.  But toward the end of the race, when the fuel was lower, I made another big flat spot at the second corner of the Degner Curve, I was not on my foot knowing the rivals were catching up fast, but yes, I did manage to keep the advantage and I am happy to have won this race.

It’s always good to start the season with a strong point. 2nd position is a good way to start the season. I was hoping to win according to circumstances today. I had a good start and could open 4.5, almost 5 seconds gap. For me, it’s quite efficient to hold during the pit stop. Our strategy was kind of flexible. We could change 4 or only 2 tires. I decided to change 2 tires when I pitted in. And I’m not sure if the message was very clear to the team and with work kind of not sure between 4 or 2. I think there was a little bit hesitation and that cost a little bit of the timing of the pit. But anyway, it’s racing. In the end, we made the most of it. I’ve been away for 1 year and to come back. So I was expecting to do some good points and to finish 2nd is a good way to start the season. It’s good boost for the confidence, for the team, for myself and my engineer. I think we’re feeling more close together, we’re putting all ideas together, improving ourselves. I’m really looking forward for the rest of the season because we were able to come out with a good result even though this was a very first race together with my new team.

The race was OK. I mean obviously not the best because the start was not good. Then I was stuck behind Izawa. It’s really difficult to overtake in Formula Nippon. When you are stuck behind, you loose down-force and tire temperatures cool down. It’s like a vicious circle. So I had to pit earlier to get the chance to pass him. And after that, I was just pushing pushing hard as if you like to catch the beat. As you saw, the race was too short but… Overall, it’s kind of disappointing because if you look at our potential, all weekend the car was fantastic and I just didn’t put it together. But it’s looking hopeful and good race in the future. In this opening race, if you put the numbers together, it should have been a victory. But I mean this is racing. A lot of things happen. Usually I have a good start. Today was not. But I’m not worried. And it’s good to start the season with a podium and it’s good to know that we made a step forward with our car setup. We have a good chance of becoming very competitive in the near future.

If Kogure thinks that the win was brought to the team from a good strategy, I think we, the team, are to be praised.  But, I think the fact is that it worked out because Kogure was doing his best to keep that position.  The car performance was not fully satisfactory, I was reported, but I want to praise his effort in trying to stay in where he was and pushed hard to keep up the pace in a difficult situation like today.  It looked to me that it was possible for Kogure to overtake the driver in front of him in the end, and it was also good that Kogure racing in a position where such was possible.

2010-04-18　Start : 13:49'36｜Finish : 14:54'41 Weather/Fine Course/Dry

Po.	No.	Driver	Team Engine	Lap	Time	Delay	BestTime
1	32	Takashi Kogure	NAKAJIMA RACING HONDA HR10E	37	1:05'05.402		1'44.043
2	19	Joao Paulo de Oliveira	Mobil1 TEAM IMPUL TOYOTA RV8K	37	1:05'06.664	1.262	1'43.726
3	36	Andre Lotterer	PETRONAS TEAM TOM'S TOYOTA RV8K	37	1:05'08.544	3.142	1'43.533
4	20	Kohei Hirate	Mobil1 TEAM IMPUL TOYOTA RV8K	37	1:05'33.682	28.280	1'43.167
5	2	Takuya Izawa	DOCOMO TEAM DANDELION RACING HONDA HR10E	37	1:05'36.295	30.893	1'44.451
6	1	Loic Duval	DOCOMO TEAM DANDELION RACING HONDA HR10E	37	1:05'42.604	37.202	1'44.586
7	31	Naoki Yamamoto	NAKAJIMA RACING HONDA HR10E	37	1:05'43.602	38.200	1'44.011
8	10	Koudai Tsukakoshi	HFDP RACING HONDA HR10E	37	1:05'50.837	45.435	1'44.191
9	16	Yuji Ide	MOTUL TEAM MUGEN HONDA HR10E	37	1:06'12.942	1'07.540	1'45.312
10	8	Hiroaki Ishiura	Team LeMans TOYOTA RV8K	37	1:06'25.406	1'20.004	1'43.997
11	29	Takuto Iguchi	DELIZIEFOLLIE/ CERUMO･INGING TOYOTA RV8K	37	1:06'38.924	1'33.522	1'45.219
12	37	Kazuya Oshima	PETRONAS TEAM TOM'S TOYOTA RV8K	37	1:06'41.583	1'36.181	1'44.263
Not Classifiled (33 Laps)
	7	Kei Cozzolino	Team LeMans TOYOTA RV8K	0		37Laps
	18	Katsuyuki Hiranaka	KCMG TOYOTA RV8K	0		37Laps
Entry : 14｜Start : 14｜Finish : 12 / Chassis : FN09 / Tire : Bridgestone