Igor Fraga has scored his first ever win in the Super Formula series, taking victory during the rearranged final event at Suzuka in by far his most successful weekend of the season.
Fraga, one of the most-decorated Gran Turismo racers in the series’ esports history, made the move up to Super Formula from the Lights category for 2025, having spent two seasons at that level and with a reserve spot in the main series last year. We’ve previously seen him race in various real-world series, carrying Gran Turismo sponsorship (very prominently on the top of his lid!), but SF is the highest level to date.
Until this weekend it’s been a bit of a mixed 2025 for Fraga as he made the step up. While he’d regularly been in the top ten, handily outpointing his more experienced team-mate Ren Sato, he was only really able to showcase his pace in the second round at Motegi with his first — and, up until now, only — podium finish.
Suzuka actually hosted one and a half rounds of the championship for the finale, courtesy of weather conditions at Fuji. Fog halted play there back in October, so the second race of the weekend — Race 10 — took place between the two races at Suzuka while using the original grid set in qualifying at Fuji.
This complicated arrangement meant that Race 11 happened first, with Fraga having achieved his joint-best qualifying spot for an opening race in 2025 as he lined up third on the grid.
Championship contender and pole-sitter Ayumu Iwasa lost out to team-mate Tomoki Nojiri in the sprint to the first turn, while Fraga managed to just beat his own team-mate Sato to get up alongside Iwasa. Through turn six the two clashed wheels, sending Iwasa out into the gravel while Fraga managed to keep it together to hold second.
Although that brought out a safety car, nothing was handed down from the stewards, and the race would continue a couple of laps later on. Nojiri — himself yet to win this season, despite coming close a couple of times — ran away with the restart, but found himself with it all to do yet again after another safety car caused by Zak O’Sullivan’s off at turn two.
Nonetheless, Nojiro kept his cool again. While Fraga was in tow, he wasn’t ever close enough to mount an attack and crossed the line 1.1 seconds off in second place, four clear of Tadasuke Makino in third. That was already Fraga’s best result of the season, but also confirmed him as rookie of the year.
It had almost never been in doubt, with Fraga heading into the final three rounds some 26.5 points ahead of his nearest rival for that crown — O’Sullivan — but their mixed fortunes in R11 pushed that gap beyond the magic 40 points available in the remaining races.
Next came the rearranged round from Fuji, and this had actually been Fraga’s best single qualifying performance of the season as he’d secured second, behind Makino, more than a month ago. Given the gap between the drivers in R11, it would seem to present Fraga’s best opportunity to grab a race win thus far.
The Gran Turismo champion certainly seemed to think so, wasting no time at all sending a pass around the outside of last year’s championship third-place man through turn one. After hitting the front, Fraga barely looked back, leading right through to a very emotional checkered flag to win by almost two seconds.
It wasn’t just Fraga’s first win either. His victory brought a first for the Nakajima team since August 2021, and in fact the first win for any team outside of the Mugen/Tom’s/Dandelion squads in almost exactly the same window. It was also the first for an overseas-registered driver since July 2023 when F1 driver Liam Lawson — who Fraga beat to the 2020 Toyota Racing Series title — took the top step at Fuji.
That just left R12, with Fraga now certain to finish the championship in sixth overall regardless of any other results and having qualified in sixth.
Instead the focus was at the front with the championship battle still to be decided and four drivers still all in the hunt. Sho Tsuboi was the points leader going in, but his Suzuka event had been decidedly middling to that point and a seventh-place starting position was not enough. He, and others, rolled the dice with early pit stops, but his challenge faded by the end of the race.
That left the door open for Dandelion team-mates Kakunoshin Ohta and Makino, tied on 107pt and starting fourth and fifth, but it was actually the fourth-place man Iwasa who found himself at the front of the field. Quite literally, after scoring both pole positions at Suzuka.
Unlike his misfortune in R11, Iwasa was able to make a good start and hold the chasing pack at bay, making his stop mid-race — joined by Fraga — and emerging with a handy lead from Sato, who’d passed Ohta to further impact the latter’s championship hopes.
Iwasa would keep his grip on the race to win and take the title at the same time. As for Fraga, as well as the maiden race win, he scored the fastest lap in both the regular Suzuka rounds. If he wasn’t already set for a 2026 seat — a season which will see two-time WRC winner Kalle Rovanpera join the grid — he should be now…
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