The 2020 Japanese

Super Formula The Japanese Super Formula Championship is a formula racing series. It is considered as being the top level of single-seater racing in Japan and regional motorsports in Asia. The series is sanctioned by the Japan Automobile Federation (JAF) an ...

Championship was the forty-eighth season of premier Japanese

open-wheel An open-wheel single-seater (often known as formula car) is a car with the wheels outside the car's main body, and usually having only one seat. Open-wheel cars contrast with street cars, sports cars, stock cars, and touring cars, which have thei ...

motor racing, and the eighth under the moniker of Super Formula.

Teams and drivers

Team changes

Ryo Michigami is a Japanese racing driver. Currently he is driving a Honda NSX GT3 Evo for Modulo Drago Corse in Super GT. He won the All Japan Grand Touring Car Championship in 2000. He competed in the GT500 category of the Super GT series in 1995 and the ...

's Drago Corse returns to the championship in partnership with ThreeBond. This marks the team's first appearance in the championship since

2016 File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses during the 2016 Nagorno-Karabakh ...

. * Team LeMans left the championship at the end of 2019. This means that 2020 was the first season since 1988 where Team LeMans was not represented. Their place was filled by KCMG and Cerumo Motorsport which both added one car each. Cerumo's third car was entered as

ROOKIE Racing ROOKIE Racing Co., Ltd., also known as Rookie Racing (stylized as ROOKIE Racing) is a Japanese racing team that competes in Super Formula, Super GT & Super Taikyu. Rookie Racing is a sister team of Toyota GAZOO Racing and based close to Fuji S ...

. *Real Racing announced it has withdrawn from the 2020 season.

Driver changes

Toyota

*2019 Japanese Formula 3 Champion Sacha Fenestraz replaces Yuji Kunimoto at Kondō Racing. Kunimoto will drive the newly acquired second car at Team KCMG. *Following the departure of Team LeMans, Kazuya Oshima moved to Cerumo Motorsport and will drive the #14 ROOKIE Racing entry.

Honda

* Tatiana Calderón moves to the revived Drago Corse team from the FIA Formula 2 Championship, becoming the first female driver in the current Super Formula era and the first in top level Japanese open-wheel racing since Ireland's Sarah Kavanagh entered two races in the

1997 Formula Nippon Championship The 1997 Formula Nippon Championship was contested over 10 rounds. 17 different teams, 37 different drivers, 3 different chassis and 2 different engines competed. Teams and drivers Calendar Note: Race 2 first finisher Norberto Fontana 1'21: ...

. * Jüri Vips was scheduled to contest the full season with Team Mugen, having joined the team at the final round of the 2019 Championship as a replacement for Patricio O'Ward. Vips missed the opening rounds at Motegi and Okayama due to his participation in the FIA Formula 2 Championship, and was replaced by Ukyo Sasahara on both occasions. Pandemic-related travel issues further prevented Vips from arriving in Japan, so Sasahara again filled in at Sportsland Sugo. Ahead of the fourth round at Autopolis, it was announced that Sasahara would keep the seat for the remainder of the season. * Pietro Fittipaldi was initially confirmed in the #50 B-MAX entry. Fittipaldi had previously competed in the first round of the 2018 Championship before an injury prevented his return. However, on the eve of a pre-season test at

Fuji Speedway is a motorsport race track standing in the foothills of Mount Fuji, in Oyama, Suntō District, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. It was built in the early 1960s. In the 1980s, Fuji Speedway was used for the FIA World Sportscar Championship and nati ...

, it was announced that Sérgio Sette Câmara would instead occupy the seat, in what was described as a "late reshuffle of race seats due to conflicting sponsors' interests". Sette Câmara will be joined by Charles Milesi, who moves up from the Japanese Formula 3 Championship. B-Max's 2019 drivers

Lucas Auer Lucas Auer (born 11 September 1994) is an Austrian racing driver. He is the nephew of former Formula 1 driver Gerhard Berger. He currently drives for HTP Winward Motorsport in DTM. He was a member of the Red Bull Junior Team. Early career In ...

and Harrison Newey left the series, both moving to the

DTM DTM may refer to: Sport * Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters, a motor-racing series staged annually in Germany since 2000 * Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft, a motor-racing championship staged in Germany from 1984 to 1995 Computing * Deterministic T ...

with BMW and Audi respectively. Neither driver raced at Motegi with Teppei Natori driving the sole B-Max Dallara. *

Alex Palou Alex is a given name. It can refer to a shortened version of Alexander, Alexandra, Alexis. People Multiple *Alex Brown (disambiguation), multiple people * Alex Gordon (disambiguation), multiple people *Alex Harris (disambiguation), multiple peo ...

left

Nakajima Racing Nakajima Planning Co.,Ltd, racing as Nakajima Racing, is a Super Formula and Super GT team organized and founded by Satoru Nakajima in 1983. The team has fielded four championship winners in the Formula Nippon racing series: Tom Coronel, Torano ...

to move to IndyCar with Dale Coyne Racing. He was replaced by Japanese F3 and Euroformula Open race winner Toshiki Oyu.

Pandemic-related

*Five drivers who participated in Round 1 were not eligible to participate in Round 2 at Okayama because the event occurred seven days after the

24 Heures du Mans 4 (four) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 3 and preceding 5. It is the smallest semiprime and composite number, and is considered unlucky in many East Asian cultures. In mathematics Four is the smallest c ...

: Calderón, Kobayashi, Nakajima, Yamashita, Milesi.

Race calendar

The provisional calendar with seven rounds was announced in July 2019. However, in September 2019 the calendar was updated to have the Suzuka Circuit as the first round rather than the

. The final round at Suzuka Circuit was pushed back 2 weeks to avoid a schedule conflict with the

FIA World Endurance Championship The FIA World Endurance Championship is an auto racing world championship organized by the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO) and sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The series supersedes the ACO's former Intercont ...

, which competes at

on 1 November. After multiple postponements due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a revised calendar was announced on 9 June 2020 that now sees the season starting in August and running until December. * On 2 March 2020, the season opener at Suzuka Circuit was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. On 7 April 2020, it was announced that the season finale would become a double-header, effectively reestablishing the second round at Suzuka. * The rounds at Fuji Speedway and Autopolis were postponed on 18 March 2020 and 31 March 2020 respectively, both also because of the virus. *On 24 April 2020, the former fourth round at Sportsland SUGO was also postponed to a so far unannounced date because of the ongoing pandemic.

Results

Season summary

Championship standings

Scoring system

For the 2020 season, the points system has been overhauled to be more in-line with

Super GT Super GT (stylized as SUPER GT) is a grand touring car racing series that began in 1993. Launched as the , generally referred to as either the JGTC or the All Japan Grand Touring Car Championship, the series was renamed to Super GT in 2005. It is ...

. The final points standings only include the five best results. Additionally, bonus points are no longer available for the final race of the season. Points are also given to the top three drivers of qualifying as opposed to just points for pole position. Note that these qualifying points do not count towards the teams' championship. ;Race points ;Qualifying points

Drivers' Championship

Teams' Championship

References

External links

Japanese Championship Super Formula official website
{{Japanese Formula 3000/Formula Nippon years

2020 2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global Social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, social and Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of events, COVID- ...

Super Formula Championship The Japanese Super Formula Championship is a formula racing series. It is considered as being the top level of single-seater racing in Japan and regional motorsports in Asia. The series is sanctioned by the Japan Automobile Federation (JAF) and ...