FRJC: Shimono takes historical win at Sugo
- MARCO ALBERTINI
- 2 minutes ago
- 3 min read
Dr.Dry's Rio Shimono took a magnificent first career win in the Formula Regional Japanese Championship at Sugo, becoming the first woman to win in the series since Miki Koyama in her title-winning campaign in 2022.
In a weekend headlined by changing weather conditions, Rio Shimono mastered the chaos at Sugo to qualify on pole for two of the weekend's three races, as well as taking a memorable maiden series win in race one to jump up to fifth in the overall standings.
Q1 on Saturday morning started like any other, with Toyota junior Kento Omiya leading the way at the start in wet conditions. However, chaos began as soon as shortly after Masayuki Ueda crossed the line to provisionally take the fastest time away from Omiya, the red flag was waved to retrieve "Akita"'s stricken car.
When the session resumed, Omiya took back provisional pole and was followed by Ryota Horachi and Yuzuki Miura. In the closing stages however, Shimono stole the spotlight and set two blistering laps to place herself on pole for races one and three ahead of Omiya. In the second session, Omiya reclaimed his spot at the top by taking pole for race two ahead of Miura and Horachi, as Shimono was a close fourth.
In race one later that day, Shimono held the lead at the start on a damp track and put the Omiya-Horachi duo at bay, before pulling away from them. As the track began to dry up, Shimono's lead over Omiya continued to grow, as no one was close to matching her speed, while she set fastest lap after fastest lap.
After consistently lapping north of a second faster than Omiya throughout most of the race, Shimono crossed the line as the checkered flag waved to become the first woman to win in FR Japan since 2022, doing so ahead of Omiya and Horachi.
Rain then hit the track again in time for race two on Sunday morning, in which Shimono lined up fourth on the grid. At the start, Shimono slipped to eighth but was aided by a collision between Masana Muto and another driver to move up to sixth and later fifth, just as the red flag was deployed due to "Akita"'s crash on the exit of Rainbow corner.
When the race restarted nearly an hour later, Omiya led the way until the end to take his fourth win of the season ahead of Horachi and Miura, while Hibiki Komatsu and Shimono rounded out the top five. As only 14 laps were completed due to the conditions, half points were awarded for race two.
Later that day, race three commenced. From pole, Shimono slipped to third at the start and was forced to take avoiding action when Omiya and Horachi spun on the exit of Turn 2, forcing her to drive on the grass and rejoin the track in fifth.
As a result, Miura inherited the lead while Omiya slotted in behind in second and Lin Chenghua was third. At the front , the leading duo collided, leaving Omiya with a damaged front wing and Miura losing the lead as he spun.
On lap 13, the safety car was deployed to retrieve Li Xuanyu's stricken car, thus bunching up the entire field for the final few laps of the race. When the race restarted on lap 18, Omiya maintained his lead as he crossed the line ahead of Miura and Horachi to take the win on track. In the final results though, the Ponos Racing driver was issued a five-second penalty for his earlier contact with Miura, which handed the latter the win and also promoted Shimono to fourth, marginally ahead of Omiya.
