Super Formula: Juju Noda enjoys season-best starting position at Fuji

Juju Noda, with her family-owned team, achieved her season-best starting position of 17th at the seventh race of the Super Formula season at Fuji during a promising weekend for the young racer.

Ph: Noda Racing

In the fourth round of the 2025 Super Formula season at Fuji, Juju Noda and Triple Tree Racing had a promising weekend, starting 17th in race two and matching their rivals' pace in the two-race weekend.

Starting off the weekend with the first qualifying session on Saturday, Noda participated in the Group A session, in which she set the fourth best-time in the early stages of the session. After pitting to change tires mid-session, Noda began her final run behind Zak O'Sullivan as they both set out to post their fastest times.

As the session ended, Noda set the ninth-best time in her group, which was good enough to put her 19th for race one's grid later that day.

Whilst polesitter Tomoki Nojiri held the lead at the start, Noda was up to 18th as they reached the final sector of the opening lap. However, Nojiri lost the lead to Tsuboi as they began the second lap, by which time Noda also fell to last, behind the Impul of Oliver Rasmussen.

Despite the early setbacks, Noda stayed close to Rasmussen as the pit cycle began for some drivers on lap ten, during which, Atsushi Miyake suffered a slow pit stop and dropped to last, behind Noda, who was following Seita Nonaka.

Ten laps later, the rest of the field came in for their only stop of the race, and on lap 25, Kamui Kobayashi and Kakunoshin Ohta began battling for 11th, with the pair nearly colliding at Dunlop. But as they headed into the final corner of the lap, contact between the two gave Kobayashi a rear-right puncture, as Ohta continued on.

While Kobayashi was in the pits, Tsuboi regained the lead from Nojiri as they headed into the closing stages. Behind them, Ayumu Iwasa overtook Nirei Fukuzumi for third six laps later and Ohta began defending ninth from Igor Fraga.

At the front, the order stayed the same as Tsuboi won ahead of Nojiri and Iwasa, while Noda finished 20th after keeping the ThreeBond Racing car of Miyake at bay in the final laps.

Ph: Noda Racing

On Sunday, Noda took part in qualifying's group B session, in which she set the ninth-best time in the early stages. In the final minutes, Noda was the first to set push laps and was able to beat O'Sullivan to set the ninth-best time for the second day in a row, which enabled her to take a season-best starting position of 17th.

In the race, as Tsuboi held on to the lead as Ohta attacked him, Noda's race came crashing down following a collision with Mitsunori Takaboshi, which left the former in the garage and the latter with a rear-right puncture.

As the early stoppers began their pit cycle at the end of lap nine, Noda returned to the track three laps later, around the same time Fukuzumi lost his front-left wheel following a pit stop, and was forced to retire.

However, it wasn't the end for pit-stop troubles in the field, as on lap 19, Nonaka suffered the same problem in the final sector and as a result the safety car was deployed on track.

On the restart, Iwasa, who had stopped just before the safety car, held the lead over Tsuboi and Ohta. However, on lap 30, Tsuboi began attacking the Mugen driver for the lead, but in doing so he used all of his Overtake System, which allowed Ohta to pass him for second on the following lap.

The Dandelion Racing driver then passed Iwasa for the lead with nine to go and never looked back as he took his third win of the season ahead of Iwasa and Tsuboi. Further down the field, Noda finished the race to gather valuable experience ahead of the upcoming round at Sugo on 9–10 August.