In short, there are three tiers of teams. You have to pick one driver from each tier per week. This will actually be done by car, not driver, given how some drivers might have to miss some rounds. Here are the tiers:
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Tier One: Pick up to twice each
DoCoMo Team Dandelion Racing
Naoki Yamamoto
Nirei Fukuzumi
Vantelin Team TOM'S
Nick Cassidy
Kazuki Nakajima
carrozzeria Team KCMG
Kamui Kobayashi
Yuji Kunimoto
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Tier Two: Pick once each
TCS Nakajima Racing
Tadasuke Makino
Toshiki Oyu
Itochu Enex Team Impul
Yuhi Sekiguchi
Ryō Hirakawa
Team Mugen
Juri Vips [Ukyo Sasahara for Round 1]
Tomoki Nojiri
Kondō Racing
Kenta Yamashita
Sacha Fenestraz
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Tier Three Pick up to twice each
JMS P.mu/cerumo・INGING
Hiroaki Ishiura
Sho Tsuboi
ROOKIE Racing
Kazuya Oshima
Drago Corse with ThreeBond
Tatiana Calderon
B-MAX Racing with Motopark
Sérgio Sette Câmara [Unconfirmed for Round 1]
Charles Milesi [Unconfirmed for Round 1]
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2019 Season Information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Super_Formula_Championship
2020 Season Information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Super_Formula_Championship
Official Site in English: https://superformula.net/sf2/en/
You will notice in the list, and in the most recent story on the front page of the website, that Vips will miss round one, and Sette Camara and Milesi are also likely to miss it. No replacements named for those last two so far. Again, picks will be counted against the car, so if you were to pick one of the replacement drivers, that would count against the primary driver as well.
It looks like both practices will be on Saturday, with qualifying before the race on Sunday. So there should be plenty of time to find the session results and make picks before qualifying.
I haven't completely figured out the points, but it will likely be similar to the standard MF1 format.
I'll make my carefully considered selections after their practice runs. Thanks for the links.
I assume we'll be posting the picks here.
Motegi:
1 - Yamamoto
2 - Sekiguchi
3 - Ishiura
Okayama:
1 - Fukuzumi
2 - Hirakawa
3 - Tsuboi
Sportsland SUGO:
1 - Cassidy
2 - Yamashita
3 - Camara
Autopolis:
1 - Cassidy
2 - Yamashita
3 - Tsuboi
Suzuka 1:
1 - Kobayashi
2 - Makino
3 - Matsushita - Racing with B-Max according to official site
Suzuka 2:
1 - Nakajima
2 - Oyu
3 - Matsushita - Might as well give him two shots at it!
Makes sense to me.
This is pretty much going to be entirely luck because, like you, I know about three of these drivers.
Yeah, just the obvious ones for me: Oyu, Nojiri, and Hirakawa....
Motegi:
1 - Nakajima
2 - Hirakawa
3 - Tsuboi
Okayama:
1 - Nick Cassidy
2 - Tadasuke Makino
3 - Ishiura
Sportsland SUGO:
1 - Kamui Kobayashi
2 - Yuhi Sekiguchi
3 - Sho Tsuboi
Autopolis:
1 - Nirei Fukuzumi
2 - Tomoki Nojiri
3 - Nobuharu Matsushita
Suzuka 1:
1 - Kazuki Nakajima
2 - Sacha Fenestraz
3 - Hiroaki Ishiura
Suzuka 2:
1 - Naoki Yamamoto
2 - Toshiki Oyu
3 - Nobuharu Matsushita
Fuji:
1 - Nick Cassidy
2 - Ukyo Sasahara
3 - Kazuya Oshima
Fairly uneventful first race. Not sure they've got a good package to run this modified race format with no pit stops.
Here is the points system:
1st: 24 points
2nd: 20 points
3rd: 18 points
4th: 16 points
5th: 15 points
6th: 14 points
7th: 13 points
8th: 12 points
9th: 11 points
10th: 10 points
11th: 9 points
12th: 8 points
13th: 7 points
14th: 6 points
15th: 5 points
16th: 4 points
17th: 3 points
18th: 2 points
19th: 1 point
20th: 0 points
2 bonus points for pole
It's the exact same as the F1 game points, except that I integrated the podium bonus points into the normal points because all picks are weekly picks here.
Week 1
Motegi
Penfold:
Tier One: Naoki Yamamoto (1) - 7 points
Tier Two: Yuhi Sekiguchi (1) - 3 points
Tier Three: Hiroaki Ishiura (1) - 12 points
Total: 22 points
Matt:
Tier One: Kazuki Nakajima (1) - 16 points
Tier Two: Ryo Hirakawa (1) - 24 + 2 points
Tier Three: Sho Tsuboi (1) - 2 points
Total: 44 points
My hopes were dashed within the space of a couple of minutes: Sekiguchi had a tyre punctured from behind and span out; Yamamoto clipped somebody, damaged his front wing and thus ruined his own race. Not that either were star performers up to then, but they were both solidly in the top ten.
I don't know what the fuel tank capacity is like on these motors, but if they could stretch the races by a few more laps that might encourage more of the field to pit for fresh rubber - particularly if the track lends itself to overtaking.
Tsuboi was out in the first corner, but my race improved from there.
Penfold already forgot about this. To follow up on what we said last race, though, they did increase the distance for this week's race. About to start now, someone crashed on the formation lap and delayed the start.
Plus, several more drivers missing. Nakajima, Kobayashi, Yamashita, and others. They were at Le Mans last weekend.
Damn, I should've put the calendar on this thread... didn't realise the next race was up. Oh well, at least they listened to us about upping the race distance.
I know the Okayama race wrapped up many hours ago, but I just added three guys for the hell of it. I have no idea where they came in the race, in qualifying, or even if they competed this weekend. Ignorance is bliss, as they say....
Well, Tsuboi won and I think the other two did compete.
It was a slow start. As mentioned, Sakaguchi wrecked in the first Kondo Racing car before the green flag. Then, after everyone stopped on the grid again and they re-did the formation lap and everything, the two Nakajima cars collided going into the first corner while in the top three, collecting Fenestraz in the second Kondo Racing car. Oyu carried way too much speed into turn one, taking out Makino, who then clipped the rear of Fenestraz.
I fell asleep after that but vaguely heard Tsuboi taking the win.
Just watched it on YouTube. Based on that race I should continue to pick drivers without any deliberation.
They left Cassidy's stop too late. I see what they were trying to do with stretching out his gap to Tsuboi, but once that lead stabilised he should've been in. As it was, Cassidy only got one hot lap on fresh rubber and he took 1.5s out of the leaders, another lap and a half and he would've been crawling all over the top two.
Oh yeah, I missed your e-mail letting me know about the race but thanks for the heads up.
Got my picks for SUGO in early. Might tweak them closer to the race.
Saturday night is going to be difficult. The end of Petit Le Mans is going to overlap with the start of Bathurst, which will then overlap with Super Formula.
Sounds like a job for caffeine and a recording device, assuming you want to binge watch them on Saturday.
Entry list for round 3: https://superformula.net/sf2/en/race2020/round3/entrylist/
First race of the season for Camara; whilst Nakajima, Kobayashi, and Yamashita are all back in action after missing rd. 2.
I'm just going to update the standings page on the site, which is now updated. Click on the banner on the homepage.
I like the layout you've done there, nice and clear.
I had almost perfect picks for SUGO, right up until Sette Camara had a dodgy stop and then slid off the track on cold tyres. I am getting more into the races as familiarity with the teams and drivers builds - if only the guys doing the commentary on YouTube channel 'The Race' were a little better.
I agree that they aren't very good. They seem to be big fans of racing in general, I just don't think they're great as commentators. The races might also be available on something called Red Bull TV, which I streamed qualifying from a couple of races ago. I know they had Martin Plowman and a couple of other guys who seemed a little more animated than the The Race guys.
I'm a little underwhelmed by the racing too. I've heard a lot of hype about how great Super Formula is, but very little seems to happen.
Certainly not the highest quality field I've seen, and many of them seem quite passive in their racing. More of a fast Sunday drive than an all-out battle for position.
Which goes against the stereotype of Japanese drivers. Although I've been watching Super GT too, which they almost all race in, and there's quite a bit of contact and aggression in those cars.
There's a race this week.
Yep. Not watched the race yet, probably see it tomorrow, but did my picks a few days back.
It was pretty much like the previous races. A few different pit strategies, but nothing too crazy happened. A replacement commentator who got every name wrong, though.
Never got round to watching it, but sounds like I didn't miss too much. I'll be sure to catch the next one. Probably.
This weekend is a doubleheader, so the first race is a day earlier than usual. Less than 24 hours from this post.
Cheers for the reminder, I'll add my carefully considered picks to the mix.
A couple of big crashes, but pretty uneventful otherwise. Rear tire failure into 130R was the first big crash. As for the second, turns out going four wide into turn one (not on the first lap) at Suzuka does not work. Hirakawa, the points leader, taken out in that second incident. Last week, he ran out of gas off the final corner of the Super GT season to lose both the race and the championship.
Here's some pictures of the second incident: https://twitter.com/supergtworld/status/1335092077974220800?s=20