TBK-Light.com

Today tests were cancelled due to the snow.

Roll hoop would be a better term? Actually no idea if its really called anti-roll bar too, but at least confusing because it's synonym for sway bar...

1:23.682 (from swede9's post above) vs. 1:17.287 (fastest Q2 from 2008, by Massa)

Which means it would be faster than GP2! Altough no GP2 time from Fuji but looking relatively GP2 vs. F1 times from other tracks...

Last year's best time from 2008 Nippon race was 1'24.818, I didn't know the now old cars were already quite fast.

And this 1.23 time will surely be beaten, the conditions were extremelly cold, not very good for the tyres, so we can wait for many improvements in the times. Formula Nippon is developing year by year, allways becoming even more a great top series in the world. Can't wait for the season starts!

Poster for 1st Race.

Change is coming!

They look like champcars now, great. MotorsTV should pick up the rights for this and show 1 hour highlights. That would be better than swamp boat racing or gncc they are showing all the time.

It's sad how difficult is getting any of these races, torrents are very hard to find and there's no coverage at all here in Chile nor even Southamerica.

Anyway these cars look great, I really love this series and I think it's the best open wheel series in the world after Formula One.

Go Formula Nippon!!

It's really sad man, looks like the tv channels totally ignore Formula Nippon, even in their sunday news they coul talk a bit of it but not a word. It's really bad cause they don't know what they are losing. Formula Nippon is an amazing series, it has awesome races, unbeliveable overtakes, lots of action, and it's not like F1 that you can almost 100% sure of who will win after the qualifying, Formula Nippon allways bring surprises, plus the Japanese circuits are great, they have very good tracks like Sugo, Autopolis and Suzuka, you can allways wait for a great race. I hope someday the tvs around the world will find how good this series is and maybe we can finally have live coverage in a lot of countries.

About the new car, in a first sight I didn't liked it, but now I's starting to fall in love with those cars, Yuya posted some photos in his forums, and man the cars are gorgeous, I can't wait for the first race, see how good will be the racing with them.

When I get more information and when everything will be confirmed for all teams, I'll write here some kind of guide, like I did last year, with information of all drivers and teams.

Seems to be shortage of them even at Racing-Underground...

The races shouldn't be really hard to get as they are shown in Japan. There are a bunch of japanese people on the trading forums, so you can trade races with them if you want.

Unless Formula Nippon starts to get more (or any) international coverage, it won't be more then a national series.

Am I the only one who's thinking those new cars look horrible? The old cars are so nice and recognizable. Don't know which planet these cars got from, but I don't like them.

With these car the series is more recognizable than ever. Not one series comes close to a car like this.

Well there is ChampC..oh wait nevermind

There used to be a guy down there from Japan who placed F-Nippon races to d/l. Managed to do the first 4 or 5 races of the season, and I was watching all of them. I actually pmed him to see if he could post the Motegi round, because it was a while before he posted anything. He replied to me and posted the round, but then after that, he simply disappeared. Who knows what happened to him, but ever since then, I wasn't able to see a single race since.

Hopefully he or someone else will be able to take up the mantle.

Don't like them either. For some reason they look like those weird ass cars from the movies (Death Race 2000 comes to mind).

Formula Nippon 2009 Season Tests Twin Ring Motegi

March 13th 2009

01 - Andre Lotterer - 1:33.917
02 - Tsugio Matsuda - 1:34.095
03 - Takashi Kogure - 1:34.141
04 - Loic Duval - 1:34.173
05 - Hiroaki Ishiura - 1:34.235
06 - Benoit Treluyer - 1:34.322
07 - Kohei Hirate - 1:34.503
08 - Takuya Izawa - 1:34.574
09 - Kodai Tsukakoshi - 1:34.731
10 - Richard Lyons - 1:35.081
11 - Keisuke Kunimoto - 1:35.240
12 - Yuji Tachikawa - 1:35.440
13 - Kazuya Oshima - 1:35.749

I'm also not a big fan. They are unique, I'll give them that!

The only part about them that I don't like is the front wing. It just looks wierd.

Some quick videos from the last test.

Circuit Safari -- in between sessions, two busses take to the track with media and VIP's to watch the cars run around them -- quite interesting
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7OMiz_PVOg


All cars practiced their launch strategy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DIS9Kggl2k

Notice the exhaust glowing out the back, flame thrower!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKCCjZkr_bM


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnJaO5cKG4c

I thought that both Kunimoto and Oshima would try a career in Europe after their superb performances in F3, specially in Macau.