Where each contender stands in Super Formula's five-way title fight

An in-depth look at how things are shaping up in Super Formula's title battle as the season resumes this weekend at Fuji Speedway... (Photos: JRP)

As the Super Formula field prepares to reconvene at Fuji Speedway this weekend, a genuine five-way fight for the drivers’ title appears to be taking shape — something few would have predicted when the season got underway in March.

Dandelion Racing had picked up from where it had left at the end of 2024, with Tadasuke Makino and Kakunoshin Ohta putting on a dominant display in the Suzuka double-header. The Motegi races were more of the same, with Makino and Ohta again sharing the spoils to cement the belief that Dandelion was the team to beat.

However, the assumption that Dandelion was going to walk away with the 2025 title was challenged at Autopolis, where both Makino and Ohta struggled as TOM’S star Sho Tsuboi pounced on the opportunity to take his first win as reigning champion.

Although the fact practice was cancelled and qualifying postponed to Sunday morning made the Autopolis weekend anything but representative, it was nonetheless the first real proof of the season that Dandelion isn’t invincible, and that other teams had a real chance of mixing it up with the Kiyoshi Muraoka-led squad.

The timing of the two-day in-season Fuji test couldn’t have been any better for Dandelion’s rivals, who will have been aiming to capitalise on a generous 10 hours of running to fix their early-season weaknesses and bridge the gap to the front.

With seven of the 12 races to go, and a massive 161 points still on offer, the championship fight remains wide open, with at least five viable contenders.

The Dandelion duo still have to be considered the favourites, with Makino leading the standings with 65 points and Ohta not far behind with 61. But Tsuboi closed the gap to the head of the standings to just 14 points with his win at Autopolis, and the evidence in Kyushu also suggests Mugen pair Ayumu Iwasa and Tomoki Nojiri are still very much in the hunt despite being 24 and 26 points behind respectively.

Of the quintet, the one driver who deserves to be placed much higher in the standings is Racing Bulls Formula 1 reserve driver Iwasa. The 23-year-old was denied a potential podium finish at Motegi by a downshifting issue, before more mechanical problems struck again at Autopolis, that time costing him a likely maiden victory.

Eager to bounce back from the double disappointment, Iwasa believes the current championship table doesn’t reflect Mugen’s true performance level in 2025.

“I don't think Dandelion is always at the top, because as you saw in Autopolis they were struggling and we were first,” he told Japan Racing Insider. “[The gap] is not crazy big. I lost two races with technical issues and if I didn't have those DNFs I would have 28 points more. If I had 28 points more now, I’d be leading the championship.

“But, it means that I lost too many points already. We cannot do that anymore.”

On the other side of the Mugen garage, Nojiri is going into Fuji with momentum behind him. Having struggled badly at Motegi, the two-time champion and his crew appeared to make major strides in fixing long-standing issues with the #16 car at Autopolis, and then was able to use the two-day test at Fuji to validate its solutions.

“There are some points where we have been struggling for the last two or three years and from Autopolis the performance got much better,” Nojiri told Japan Racing Insider. “We had a [strategy] mistake that affected us, but pace-wise, we're very close.

“There's not a big difference between the other teams and us. I have confidence this year. Let's say that we're 50 percent confident that we can win the championship.”

Toyota’s lone warrior Tsuboi is the closest rival to the Dandelion duo in the standings, and he too would have been much closer to Ohta and Makino had he not lost a solid clutch of points in the second race at Motegi due to a clutch issue.

The defending Super Formula and SUPER GT champion has a unique advantage in his arsenal — his exceptional track record at Fuji Speedway, with three wins from three last year. With four of the remaining seven races taking place at the Toyota-owned track, this give his Honda-powered rivals a serious cause of concern.

“Our short run pace is very good, but for the long run pace, it’s been more difficult to put together,” Makino told Japan Racing Insider. “Since 2023 Fuji has been a good track for us, and I think we will be strong enough to fight for the win. But it’s an important track for the championship because Toyota and especially TOM’S is so strong there.

“At Autopolis Iwasa was really fast, so we need to watch out for him, but honestly Tsuboi is our biggest threat. He is strong not only at Fuji, but also Sugo.”

For his part, Tsuboi was eager to downplay his chances of scoring a clean sweep of victories at Fuji again, suggesting any advantage he had at the track last year will have been levelled out by the in-season test, which was extended from the usual eight to 10 hours of running after the Suzuka pre-season test was disrupted by snow.

“Honestly, I don’t think it will be like last year [at Fuji] again,” Tsuboi told Japan Racing Insider. “Last year was just a bit too perfect, and I don’t think it will be easy to repeat that this year, so it’s better not to think about what happened last year.

“Everyone just had 10 hours of testing there. If we didn’t have that, maybe I’d feel like I still had a little bit of an advantage, but now everyone did so much running there, I feel like that has basically gone and it’s going to be that much tougher now.”

Once again, Tsuboi is way out in front in the championship among the Toyota engine users. You have to go down to Kenta Yamashita in eighth to find the next non-Honda driver, putting additional pressure on Tsuboi in the title fight. But now the Japanese summer has well and truly arrived, with temperatures likely to be around the 30-degree mark at Fuji this weekend, the pendulum could swing the other way.

“Last year, we saw Toyota was able to perform better in warm conditions, and now it has become hotter, I think that will help,” said Tsuboi. “And, as Fuji is Toyota’s home circuit, I don’t want to lose to the Honda camp again.”

But for now, it’s the two Dandelion drivers that hold sway, and their task is to preserve their advantage and ensure one of the pair delivers the team its first title since 2020.

There is little to separate Makino and Ohta in the standings. Both each ‘dropped’ as result at Suzuka due to badly-timed safety cars, while winning the other race. And after the pair of 1-2 finishes at Motegi, neither Dandelion driver had a race to savour at Autopolis, although Ohta can be count himself lucky that teammate Makino was not in a better position to capitalise on his failure to score after a dreadful start.

Like Tsuboi at Fuji, Ohta has a personal stronghold: Suzuka. The 26-year-old has now won four of the last six races at the figure-of-eight venue, which will host the final two races of the season, giving him a record to rival that of ‘Mr Suzuka’ himself, the now-retired Naoki Yamamoto who scored six of his eight wins at the circuit.

While Suzuka’s weight in the championship has diminished slightly with Fuji getting a second double-header this year, Ohta’s form there could yet prove decisive. And the knowledge that he has the Suzuka finale ahead alleviates some of the pressure.

“Last year Tsuboi-san won all three races at Fuji, so it's not easy to win there,” Ohta told Japan Racing Insider. “Of course, we are aiming for the win, but if we have less of a chance to win at Fuji, [we have to] just manage and score a lot of points, to get the podium at least and just stay in a higher position in the standings.

“Fortunately the last round is Suzuka. I already won four times there, and this year I already won there once. So the last two races are a big chance. I just have to win those two races. So [the goal is] staying close — hopefully, in the top one or two in the standings — and just win at Suzuka to take the championship. That's it.”

With so much racing still to come this year, you can just about plot a realistic path to title glory for any of the leading five drivers. Strategy, reacting correctly to safety cars, smooth pitstops, reliability: all of these things will have a role to play in the outcome.

But speed at Fuji, and especially long-run speed as it’s a track where overtaking is possible, is non-negotiable. By Sunday evening, we’ll have a clearer idea of who has the potential to go all the way in one of the most finely-poised title battles for years.