Rounds 3 and 4 of Japanese Formula 3 have just been concluded over the weekend at the 4.8 km road course circuit in Twin Ring Motegi. The Achievement backed team had a trying weekend as drivers Gary Thompson and Matt Howson fought hard to score championship points in their Toyota powered Dallaras.
The second event of the Japanese series enjoyed sunny conditions throughout the race weekend. The team did a solid job during qualifying, with Thompson securing fourth position and Howson in fifth for Round 3. During the second session, Howson qualified fifth and Thompson, sixth for Round 4.
Both cars finished as drivers competitively raced in the third and fourth rounds. The team has been working hard to ensure that the cars are developed to help Thompson and Howson, however several set backs were encountered as both drivers struggled for pace.
Thompson was initially battling for second before going off the circuit, but the 19-year-old Dubliner was able to make an impressive comeback and finished fourth during Round 3. Meanwhile, out in his first race for Japanese Formula 3 this season, Howson fought back to fifth position after stalling on the grid.
The team returned the following morning for Round 4 of the Japanese series, with Thompson finishing fourth and Howson in fifth. At the outset, Thompson had a cracking start as he moved up from sixth to third position. However, Thompson dropped one position after being overtaken by another driver. His British teammate also had a good start but lost position later in the race.
KCMG Team Manager (Japan) Ryu Doi commented, “The results this weekend were not what we have expected but we are not discouraged by this. Our focus is to continuously work to ensure that the cars are properly developed and run more competitively in the upcoming rounds of the championship. We are aimed at working on the cars and will conduct private tests before Rounds 5-6 at Fuji Speedway in July. We have very talented drivers and we are positive that the team has better times ahead.”
Gary Thompson states, “The weekend didn’t quite go according to plan. We came to Motegi after winning here last year, confident that we could challenge for the win, but we ended up struggling a bit for pace right from the start of the first practice. All throughout the weekend we weren’t as fast as we needed to be. We were working hard to improve the car but still couldn’t really make much progress. Myself and the team are focused to understand what needs to be resolved and we are confident that we will come back stronger in Fuji.”
Matt Howson, who joined SGC by KCMG in time for the race weekend in Motegi, was quoted, “It was a great feeling to be back in Japan, and racing with KCMG again in my first time at the Motegi circuit. It was always going to be a tough weekend in terms of results as the chassis-engine combination of the Dallara F308 and Toyota 3SGE is brand new to Formula 3, and racing cars make their biggest gains with development in these early days. Race weekends are difficult to try too many changes, but my mechanics and engineer did an unbelievable job and we gained a lot of valuable data.”
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