Every driver from Super Formula's SF19/SF23 era ranked
An attempt to definitively rank all 57 drivers who have started a Super Formula race since the start of the 2019 season... (Photos: JRP, Honda, Toyota)
The first Super Formula race I attended in person was the season finale in 2018 at Suzuka, the final race of the SF14 era. Since then, I have been lucky enough to attend the vast majority of races that have taken place during the SF19 and SF23 eras — since moving to Japan in 2019, I’ve been on the ground for all but six events.
I had been saving this idea for when I hit 1,000 subscribers on Japan Racing Insider, but as I haven’t quite reached that particular milestone yet, I thought it was better to have a stab at tackling this ranking now during the relatively quiet summer months instead of waiting until the end of the season, when there will be no shortage of silly season news, testing and driver announcements to fill the airwaves.
It should go without saying that this list is strictly subjective. Drivers are ranked not purely on the results they achieved during the SF19/SF23 era, but also according to the experience they had at the time (i.e., eye-catching rookies are regarded more highly than those with more experience), the quality of the teams they drove for, their performance relative to their teammates, and other factors.
Drivers with more starts are also generally looked on more favourably than those with fewer, all other things being equal, so this year’s bumper rookie crop does not feature terribly highly, although I plan to create an updated version of this list in the future.
Teppei Natori does not feature on this list as he didn’t start what should have been his one and only Super Formula race for B-Max Racing at Motegi in 2020.
So, without further ado, here is the full 57-driver list in reverse order — enjoy!
NB: This list was compiled before the most recent round of the series at Sugo, but the stats have been updated to reflect the events of that race.
Tristan Charpentier
Starts: 1. Best grid position: 15th. Best finish: Retired
Driving for Real Racing, little-remembered Frenchman Charpentier arrived in Japan with very little experience under his belt — and it showed as he crashed out of what proved to be his one and only Super Formula start before the money ran dry.
Artem Markelov
Starts: 5. Best grid position: 17th. Best finish: 10th
Markelov joined Team LeMans in 2019 with plenty of Formula 2 experience on his CV, but seemingly couldn’t get his head around the Yokohama tyres. He didn’t last the season, missing the final two rounds as he seized a chance to return to F2.
Juju Noda
Starts: 16. Best grid position: 17th. Best finish: 12th
The youngest-ever Super Formula driver has made plenty of headlines, but the results haven’t been great, either with TGM Grand Prix or the family-run Triple Tree Racing outfit, even if there have been some encouraging signs of progress lately.
Yuichi Nakayama
Starts: 9. Best grid position: 12th. Best finish: 11th
Despite his experience and SUPER GT pedigree, Nakayama made little impact in his various substitute outings for Markelov at Team LeMans and later at Kondo Racing, where he variously stood in for both Kenta Yamashita and Sacha Fenestraz.
Raoul Hyman
Starts: 10. Best grid position: 18th. Best finish: 15th
It feels harsh to place Hyman so low considering he had just one season in a B-Max Racing team that was ill-equipped to run a second car. But a qualifying average of 20th and a similar lack of speed in races makes it impossible to rank him higher.
Dan Ticktum
Starts: 3. Best grid position: 16th. Best finish: 8th
Ticktum’s brief time in Super Formula straddled the SF14 and SF19 eras, but we can only judge him by his three appearances in 2019 for Team Mugen before he was fired by Red Bull. And, despite a points finish in a high-attrition Suzuka race, nothing the Briton did in that time suggested the energy drinks giant made the wrong call.
Theo Pourchaire
Starts: 1. Best grid position: 16th. Best finish: 18th
Pourchaire’s one and only start in Super Formula proved little short of a disaster as an off-track excursion restricted him to 18th, far from a real reflection of the Formula 2 champion’s potential, as seen with some encouraging times in pre-season testing.
Mitsunori Takaboshi
Starts: 10. Best grid position: 15th. Best finish: 11th
Looked handy as a stand-in for Ryo Hirakawa at Team Impul at Sugo in 2021, but Takaboshi’s start to life as a full-time driver at the same team four years on has been a let-down, even he has now put a disastrous start to the year at Suzuka behind him.
Riki Okusa
Starts: 2. Best grid position: 17th. Best finish: 13th
Called up by TGM to contest the final double-header at Suzuka in 2023 in place of Toshiki Oyu, Okusa showed some eye-catching one-lap speed, but his results weren’t enough for the now-Honda factory driver to force his way into a full-time drive, and crashes in subsequent test outings have done little to help his case either.
Hibiki Taira
Starts: 9. Best grid position: 15th. Best finish: 9th
Taira’s promotion to a Team Impul seat in 2024 only came after Theo Pourchaire’s sudden exit, and an uninspired five-race stint with the newly Toyota-aligned TGM team only confirmed that the Okinawan wasn’t quite at the level required to be a permanent fixture on the grid with so many other talented youngsters in the queue.
Oliver Rasmussen
Starts: 4. Best grid position: 15th. Best finish: 13th
It remains very early to pass judgement on Rasmussen given his injury-impacted start to the season, and surely he will appear higher in subsequent versions of this list in years to come. But right now, the perma-smiling Dane is still in the learning phase.
Seita Nonaka
Starts: 7. Best grid position: 17th. Best finish: 8th
Still only four races into his Super Formula career, Toyota junior Nonaka is another whose ultimate potential remains a mystery. He made a good impression standing in for Kamui Kobayashi at KCMG at Motegi, but his first weekend at TGM as Taira’s replacement for the second half of the season was one to forget.
Cem Bolukbasi
Starts: 10. Best grid position: 14th. Best finish: 8th
Immensely likeable and humble, Bolukbasi was short on mileage when he arrived in Super Formula after a disjointed F2 campaign. Solid race pace and a dash of fortune allowed him to score points twice early on, but qualifying remained a bugbear all year.
Tatiana Calderon
Starts: 9. Best grid position: 18th. Best finish: 12th
Considering how much the team now known as ThreeBond Racing has struggled since her exit, Calderon’s two seasons in 2020-21 look better with hindsight. She may not have scored points, but she came close on occasions, despite the disadvantage of missing races in both her campaigns due to COVID-19 travel restrictions.
Charles Milesi
Starts: 3. Best grid position: 8th. Best finish: 11th
Another driver whose Super Formula stint was soured by COVID, Milesi drove for B-Max in the second-half of the 2020 season, and the diminutive redhead showed some genuine speed at Suzuka before turning his attention to European sports car racing.
Rikuto Kobayashi
Starts: 2. Best grid position: 15th. Best finish: 16th
Yet another Toyota-backed youngster who made a big impression as a substitute, only in Kobayashi’s case, it was for a less competitive team and without the benefit of having tested for the same squad beforehand. That’s why the quirky Yamagata Prefecture native finds himself above Nonaka on this list — for now.
Juri Vips
Starts: 1. Best grid position: 19th. Best finish: 18th
Ex-Red Bull junior Vips is probably the driver whose ranking on this list is worst affected by COVID. A stall on his way out of the pits cost him a chance of points in what turned out to be his one and only start at Suzuka in late 2019, and things were looking good in pre-season testing in ‘20 before the dreaded pandemic hit.
Pato O’Ward
Starts: 3. Best grid position: 11th. Best finish: 6th
Pato who? While Alex Palou’s spell in Japan is well-remembered, the same can’t be said for his fellow IndyCar star O’Ward. Still, the charismatic Mexican scoring the best finish all year for Team Mugen’s Red Bull-backed car was an achievement of sorts, and it would have been interesting to see him tackle a full season in 2020.
Harrison Newey
Starts: 7. Best grid position: 9th. Best finish: 3rd
The son of F1 design guru Adrian was a worthy addition to the grid in 2019 with B-Max/Motopark. But a podium at Okayama was his only points finish of the year, and owed a lot to a well-timed safety car and starting on the ‘right’ tyre compound.
Zak O’Sullivan
Starts: 8. Best grid position: 8th. Best finish: 7th
Pre-season testing form suggested F2 convert O’Sullivan might be the rookie to beat this year, but so far it hasn’t panned out that way. Started positively with an eighth-place finish in the opening race of the year Suzuka, but since then he’s always looked to be a step or two behind his Kondo Racing teammate Kenta Yamashita.
Kazuto Kotaka
Starts: 32. Best grid position: 6th. Best finish: 6th
Although his results haven’t been outstanding, Kotaka gains points for sheer longevity, with over double the number of starts of any driver below him on this list. And while he didn’t particularly impress in two seasons at Kondo Racing, he is starting to look more convincing at TGM, having seen off the threat of Taira.
Ben Barnicoat
Starts: 1. Best grid position: 17th. Best finish: 13th
Parachuted in at Team Impul for a single outing at Autopolis after Pourchaire’s departure, Lexus IMSA star Barnicoat didn’t disgrace himself around a track he’d never seen before, setting fastest lap on his way to a respectable 13th place finish.
Iori Kimura
Starts: 9. Best grid position: 11th. Best finish: 9th
It always felt like Kimura only got his chance with B-Max last year because of his come-from-behind Super Formula Lights title and that Honda didn’t particularly believe in him. And so it proved when he was given the boot despite scoring points on two occasions, one more than predecessor Nobuharu Matsushita managed in 2023.
Shun Koide
Starts: 8. Best grid position: 9th. Best finish: 8th
Kimura’s successor at B-Max so far hasn’t quite kicked on after an excellent start to his rookie campaign at Suzuka, but you get the impression that Koide has a higher ceiling than his old Honda junior stablemate based on the limited evidence so far.
Atsushi Miyake
Starts: 27. Best grid position: 5th. Best finish: 3rd
Something of a surprise signing for Team Goh in 2022, Miyake proved his worth that year with a podium at Autopolis and several other solid finishes. After a year out, he returned with ThreeBond last year, but the upturn in form that pre-season testing suggested was possible in 2025 remains frustratingly yet to materialise.
Sergio Sette Camara
Starts: 1. Poles: 1. Best finish: Retired
The ultimate one-hit wonder of the SF19 era. COVID meant Sette Camara had to wait until Sugo to join B-Max/Motopark, and he shocked the establishment by sticking it on pole first time of asking. A debut win was looking unlikely even before he found the barriers in the race, and the siren call of Formula E meant he wasn’t seen again.
Giuliano Alesi
Starts: 20. Poles: 1. Wins: 1
Alesi is the lowest race winner on this list, and with good reason — his triumph at Autopolis in 2021 came after very few laps of green-flag running in awful weather. Across the next two years the son of F1 hero Jean would never finish higher than eighth, and TOM’S finally lost patience with him after a sloppy start to 2023.
Koudai Tsukakoshi
Starts: 11. Best grid position: 5th. Best finish: 7th
Although the best days of his Super Formula career were well behind him by the dawn of the SF19 era, Tsukakoshi was impressive at times driving for the minnow Real Racing team in 2019, and was a solid stand-in for Tatiana Calderon at Drago Corse over the course of the next two seasons, with three outings in 2021 proving his last.
Nyck de Vries
Starts: 3. Best grid position: 17th. Best finish: 11th
Ex-F1 driver de Vries was just the tonic that Team Impul needed in the middle of last season, but even a driver of the Dutchman’s calibre couldn’t reverse the team’s dismal qualifying form. He made up for that with some storming race drives, but a penalty that he felt to be overly harsh at Fuji prevented him from coming away with points.
Kazuya Oshima
Starts: 57. Best grid position: 7th. Best finish: 3rd
Oshima celebrated 100 starts in Super Formula as he announced his retirement plans at Fuji, and over half of those have come in the SF19/SF23 era. A podium for Team LeMans at Autopolis in 2019 and an emotional fourth-place finish for Rookie Racing at Sugo in ‘23 have been backed up by some better showings this year.
Lucas Auer
Starts: 7. Best grid position: 3rd. Best finish: 3rd
With Red Bull backing, Auer was a revelation on his return to single-seaters with B-Max/Motopark, with several strong qualifying showings and a podium finish at Sugo to boot. However, home sickness made it was always unlikely the Austrian would stay in 2020, with an offer from BMW to go back to the DTM proving too good to refuse.
Kazuki Nakajima
Starts: 14. Best grid position: 4th. Best finish: 2nd
A champion in both the FN09 and the SF14, Nakajima somehow never quite got on with the SF19, proving no match for new TOM’S teammate Nick Cassidy. The ex-F1 driver nonetheless remained a safe pair of hands and was still capable of the odd turn of speed, picking up two second-place finishes before retiring at the end of 2021.
Igor Fraga
Starts: 8. Best grid position: 3rd. Best finish: 3rd
Fraga matched Auer by standing on the podium in just his third Super Formula start, finishing third at Motegi for Nakajima Racing. What puts the Brazilian a couple of places higher on the list is his lack of experience at such a high level, and the fact he has gone toe-to-toe with an established teammate in the form of Ren Sato.
Yuji Kunimoto
Starts: 49. Poles: 1. Best result: 3rd
Like Nakajima, 2016 champion Kunimoto didn’t show the best of himself in the SF19 era. He knitted together a consistent season upon moving from Kondo to KCMG in 2020, peaking with a podium at Suzuka, but would never breach the top five again during his four remaining seasons, including after joining Team Impul last year.
Hiroki Otsu
Starts: 27. Poles: 1. Wins: 1
Without the help of inclement weather at Motegi in his rookie season at Mugen/Goh, it’s very likely Otsu’s Super Formula career would have ended after 2021. Victory that weekend opened the door to a switch to Dandelion Racing, but he didn’t make the most of the opportunity, instead settling into life as Honda’s resident super-sub.
Hiroaki Ishiura
Starts: 14. Best grid position: 5th. Best result: 2nd
Together with Andre Lotterer and Naoki Yamamoto one of the outstanding drivers of the SF14 era, Ishiura was nearing the end of his top-line career when the SF19 era began. Amid Sho Tsuboi’s arrival at Inging, it was clear the baton had been passed.
Ren Sato
Starts: 38. Best grid position: 2nd. Best result: 3rd
It says a lot about Sato’s unfulfilled potential that his best grid position of second came in his very first Super Formula race. You still get the feeling he could flourish in the right environment — he’s still only 23, after all — but equally, you’d have hoped he would have had the clear measure over rookie Fraga at Nakajima this year.
Sena Sakaguchi
Starts: 43. Poles: 1. Best result: 2nd
Ishiura’s successor at Inging started with a bang with a pair of podiums as a rookie, but his form has been more up and down since. Generally shaded by Sho Tsuboi, he has proven a match for Toshiki Oyu since the pair became teammates last year.
Ukyo Sasahara
Starts: 31. Poles: 1. Wins: 2
If you took Sasahara’s career up to the end of 2022, he would be ranked several places higher on this list. But his achievements are somewhat soured by the fact he couldn’t muster a single point in a year-and-a-half after replacing Giuliano Alesi at TOM’S.
Toshiki Oyu
Starts: 47. Poles: 3. Wins: 1
On sheer talent alone, Oyu would be a contender for the very top spot of this list. That the Hokkaido native himself down in P18 instead is a reflection of the many mistakes he has made in between spurts of mind-boggling speed, and the fact he has not quite lived up to the standard established by Sho Tsuboi in his time with Inging so far.
Sacha Fenestraz
Starts: 25. Best grid position: 2nd. Wins: 1
At his best, Fenestraz can win races and fight for championships in Super Formula, as he demonstrated with his 2022 campaign with Kondo Racing. But how he handles the challenge of matching teammate Sho Tsuboi at TOM’S after his two-year Formula E dalliance will probably define how his time in Japan is ultimately remembered.
Yuhi Sekiguchi
Starts: 38. Poles: 1. Wins: 2
The Oyu of his generation, Kazuyoshi Hoshino’s favoured son Sekiguchi would only assemble one truly consistent campaign in the SF19 era in 2021. After that, the balance of power within Team Impul shifted irreversibly towards Ryo Hirakawa, and a dreadful 2023 season precipitated the premature end of his Super Formula career.
Nobuharu Matsushita
Starts: 32. Poles: 1. Wins: 1
‘Nobu’ made an immediate impact on his return to Super Formula in mid-2020 after losing his F2 drive and achieved some giant-killing results with B-Max, but by 2023 he was out of favour with Honda and a last roll of the dice with TGM failed to pay off.
Kamui Kobayashi
Starts: 47. Best grid position: 3rd. Best result: 2nd
The biggest name on the grid of the past few years, WEC star Kobayashi should by rights have multiple wins to his name by now. But while his race pace has often been excellent, his qualifying performances prevent him from featuring any higher.
Kenta Yamashita
Starts: 56. Poles: 2. Wins: 1
A consistent podium contender, with visits to the top-three in every season of this era bar two, ‘Yamaken’ is nonetheless another driver without the cold, hard results to match his talent. But that elusive second win feels like it may not be far away now.
Naoki Yamamoto
Starts: 46. Poles: 3. Wins: 3
Is it controversial to have a champion outside of the top 10? While highly effective (if not always consistent) in 2019 and ‘20 for Dandelion, Yamamoto just couldn’t replicate that same speed at Nakajima Racing, with just one win in wet conditions to show for four seasons of toil. In the dry, third in last year’s opener was the high-water mark.
Ayumu Iwasa
Starts: 17. Poles: 1. Wins: 1
A race winner in F2 and a test driver in F1, it should be no surprise that Iwasa has made the impact he has on Super Formula in such a short time. The fact he has still yet to win a race shouldn’t count too harshly against him, as he has been close enough on enough occasions to suggest the breakthrough is simply a matter of time.
Nirei Fukuzumi
Starts: 57. Poles: 3. Wins: 2
Some might question whether a driver with a relatively modest record should be in the top 10 of this ranking, but a superb 2021 season as the de facto team leader at Dandelion, some giant-killing drives for Drago Corse and an impressive ‘24 campaign for KCMG just about gets the perennial underrated Fukuzumi over the line.
Tadasuke Makino
Starts: 54. Poles: 3. Wins: 4
When the dust settles on the SF23 era, it’s very possible that Makino could end up higher on this list, such is the high level he is operating at currently. But for now, the fact it took him such an agonisingly long time to get his first win counts against him, as does the fact it took him until season four to beat a teammate across a season.
Liam Lawson
Starts: 9. Poles: 1. Wins: 3
Stats-wise, Lawson’s 2023 season is right up there — a 33% percent win record is a record for the modern era — but he did have the benefit of having access to the best car in the first year of the SF23. Arguably unfortunate to lose out on the title, there were some crucial errors as well, not that they stopped the Kiwi on his rise to F1.
Ritomo Miyata
Starts: 28. Best grid position: 2nd. Wins: 2
Miyata’s three seasons as a full-timer for TOM’S got better as they went on. 2021? Not bad, but not in line with expectations either. 2022? Solid, if unspectacular. 2023? Very lucky to escape penalty for ignoring yellows in qualifying at Sugo, but otherwise did an excellent job against the superior Mugen/Honda package to squeak the title.
Kakunoshin Ohta
Starts: 25. Poles: 1. Wins: 6
Choosing between the two Dandelion drivers was difficult, but the impressive record Ohta has assembled in a short space of time gets him ahead of Tadasuke Makino. His speed is not in question, especially at Suzuka, and an extremely timely triumph at Fuji last weekend suggests he also has the ultimate consistency needed for the title.
Alex Palou
Starts: 7. Poles: 3. Wins: 1
He may have been in Super Formula for one season, but what a season it was! Palou deserved more than just one win and third in the championship in an outstanding campaign that could well have yielded a first rookie title since Ralf Schumacher. A crying shame he didn’t stay on for 2020, a season he could well have dominated, not that the Spaniard himself is likely to have any regrets about jumping to IndyCar…
Ryo Hirakawa
Starts: 39. Poles: 3. Wins: 4
Another driver who should really have a title to his name, Hirakawa’s luck dried up in the latter half of 2020 after an excellent start, although he deservedly got himself back on Toyota’s international radar and earned a WEC seat for 2022. After that, he made Team Impul look better than it really was against the might of Mugen; just look at his demolition of Sekiguchi in 2023, and how little the team has achieved since his exit.
Nick Cassidy
Starts: 14. Poles: 1. Wins: 2
The prime beneficiary of Palou’s misfortune in 2019 was Cassidy, but the super-quick New Zealander was the year’s outstanding Toyota driver upon moving from Kondo Racing to TOM’S. The following year, few could match his consistency, and although an engine failure after a mesmerising pole at Suzuka took him out of contention to back up his 2019 crown, he could leave Japan for Formula E with his head held high.
Sho Tsuboi
Starts: 57. Poles: 3. Wins: 7
Such has been Tsuboi’s recent success that it’s easy to forget he had some very tough years with Inging after a breakthrough 2020 — 15th in 2021, 11th in 2022 and then finding strong form again with the switch to the SF23. Since joining TOM’S in 2024, he has scaled even higher highs than his predecessor Miyata, swelling his victory tally to seven, earning title number one and staking a strong claim for number two.
Tomoki Nojiri
Starts: 56. Poles: 18. Wins: 12
Surprise! Given the stats, and the sustained success from the start of his partnership with Team Mugen in 2019, there was no real choice other than Nojiri to top this poll. In particular, Nojiri’s 2022 title campaign stands out as probably the outstanding season of not only this era, but of any since Andre Lotterer’s crushing 2011 romp. And even in 2025, against stiffer competition than ever, he’s still a factor at the front.
Thanks for the write up! Maybe there should be a ‘minimum nr of races’ threshold for including drivers in the ranking, say 3 or 5. This would avoid having to discuss one-offs like Pourchaire and others that don’t have enough driving history to know where they stack relative to others.