According to Motorsport.com, Igor Fraga drove a brilliant, untroubled race from pole to secure his first full-length Super Formula victory on Saturday at Fuji. The Nakajima Racing driver led the entire 41-lap distance, relinquishing the top spot only briefly during the pit cycle. That is a proper statement drive. It marks the Brazilian driver's third career win, though both prior successes came in reduced-length replacement races, including an earlier outing this year at Fuji.
Behind the leader, Kakunoshin Ohta took a massive step toward an early coronation by finishing second for Docomo Team Dandelion Racing. Ohta spent the race glued to Fraga's gearbox until a sudden steering issue on the penultimate lap dropped his pace and dragged Team Impul's Zak O'Sullivan right into the battle. O'Sullivan had charged from sixth on the grid, fighting past Tomoki Nojiri and Yuto Nomura before clearing Ayumu Iwasa for third on lap 12. Though an undercut in the pits initially cost the Briton, he muscled his way back past the Team Mugen driver on lap 26 and hunted down Ohta at the death, though he ran out of track to make a pass on the final lap.
Ohta's second-place finish extended his championship advantage to 48 points, with Fraga now sitting as his nearest challenger in the standings. That leaves Ohta with a golden opportunity to wrap up the title in Sunday's Fuji finale with two races to spare. Should the Dandelion Racing driver preserve a margin of at least 46 points over Fraga and his other rivals, he clinches the crown right there without needing the final double-header weekend at Suzuka in late November.
Further down the order, Ayumu Iwasa crossed the line fourth in another damaging blow to his title defence. Sho Tsuboi claimed fifth for Tom's after winning a fierce scrap with Rookie Racing driver Nirei Fukuzumi. Meanwhile, Nobuharu Matsushita delivered an impressive seventh for the new-for-2026 Delightworks Racing squad, grabbing their first points since the Suzuka round in May. Toshiki Oyu took eighth for Inging, while the TGM Grand Prix duo of Rikuto Kobayashi and Kamui Kobayashi completed the points scorers, with the latter marking his first race as a 40-year-old.
It was a tougher day for other notable names. Williams Formula 1 reserve driver Luke Browning could only salvage 15th for Kondo Racing after starting 16th, and Tomoki Nojiri suffered another brutal outing by fading to 16th in the second Mugen machine. Yuto Nomura retired from B-Max Racing after a second trip to the pits, having originally qualified a strong third. Meanwhile, Super Formula rookie Kazuhisa Urabe made an incredible impression by stepping in at the last moment to replace the injured Sena Sakaguchi—who suffered an eye injury—and wrestling his Inging car into Q2 to qualify 11th before finishing 21st in the race.
