Analysis - how IMPUL_official pair yuhisekiguchi and ryohirakawa produced a SFormula battle for the ages at Motegi:
In the end, it was Sekiguchi that prevailed after putting up a stern defence on old tyres against Hirakawa, who was able to close in rapidly in the final few laps with his fresh Yokohama rubber.
Sekiguchi himself admitted post-race that he felt the strategy was a mistake at first as he rapidly caught up with a train of three cars circulating at the rear of the field comprising Hiroki Otsu, Ritomo Miyata and Kazuya Oshima. Sekiguchi proceeded to post two laps in the low 1m34s range, so that the gap to the leader was down to 24.5s by the end of lap 15. With the pitlane time loss sitting around the 27-second mark, that was it. Sekiguchi was in the net lead.
Regardless, Hirakawa did a superb job of nursing his Yokohamas until lap 30, never dropping out of the 1m35s range for the rest of his stint. His reward was an overcut on both Oyu and Fenestraz, and then his tyre offset meant he could make short work of both Nojiri and Makino to move into second.Hirakawa disposed of Makino on lap 34 at Turn 5, giving himself three-and-a-half laps to catch and pass teammate Sekiguchi.
On that lap, Sekiguchi activated his OTS approaching the Turn 10 hairpin that leads on to the downhill straight before Turn 11, and Hirakawa did likewise. That meant both were unable to use the overtaking aid on the penultimate lap, as they were both amid their 100-second cool-off period. It was no use though, as Sekiguchi just barely held on during the final showdown at Turn 11, with Hirakawa going on the outside kerb and briefly catching air with his front wheels. “I wasn’t really close enough [to pass]," said Hirakawa."But the key really was two laps before with the OTS, I wasn’t smart enough.”“I could see in my mirror that Hirakawa had passed Nojiri and Makino, so I knew he was coming fast,” he recalled.
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