How TOM'S and Tsuboi put together the perfect Super Formula season

Reflecting on the final weekend of the 2024 Super Formula season as Sho Tsuboi deservedly won his first drivers' title... (Photos: JRP)

In the end, it wasn’t even that close. It might be harsh to describe Super Formula’s Suzuka finale as a damp squib, but in the end, there was no stopping Sho Tsuboi, whose two second-place finishes were more than enough to beat his two closest rivals, Tomoki Nojiri and Tadasuke Makino, to the championship fairly comfortably.

Nojiri and Makino both headed to Suzuka with a realistic chance of overhauling Tsuboi with the number of points on offer, but given the form that TOM’S ace was in, only a perfect weekend for one or the other would have been enough. It just so happened that the driver that did have a perfect weekend, Makino’s Dandelion Racing teammate Kakunoshin Ohta, went into the finale already out of title contention.

Saturday qualifying served to all but remove Nojiri from the equation, as the combination of a red flag in Q1 and Ohta sneaking ahead of the Team Mugen driver on his warm-up lap when the session resumed left him without enough tyre temperature for the start of his flying lap, eliminated and starting down in 14th.

There was still some hope for Makino starting fourth, one place ahead of Tsuboi. But a scintillating out lap from Tsuboi allowed him to jump ahead of Makino for what became second place, all but guaranteeing the TOM’S driver the title.

Then a poor showing in qualifying on Sunday from Makino, who took his worst grid slot of the year in 10th, meant it was essentially all over by mid-morning. Not that Tsuboi was in any mood to cruise home, as he came within a whisker of undercutting an otherwise dominant Ohta in the pitstop phase on his way to another second place to make it an incredible seven podium finishes of a possible nine in 2024.