In the first three races in Suzuka, Rio Shimono finished 8th twice and 7th once.
After winning the Kyojo Cup last year, Shimono is competing this year for the Dr. Dry F111 team in the Formula Regional Japanese Championship. She already demonstrated in qualifying that the move up was a wise one, starting the first two races from the middle of the field and the final race from the second row.
Shimono started the first race from 7th place out of 16. She got off to a good start and briefly managed to get close to the front, but couldn’t quite capitalize on it in the twisty first sector. She therefore remained in seventh place, but was right on the tail of the rider in front. Especially in the early laps, there were many small riding errors, and many riders had to take the escape route at the final chicane. Unfortunately for Shimono, none of them lost enough time to end up behind her.
After the first few laps, the riders’ strengths and therefore the lap times stabilized. The gaps between them grew ever larger. Shimono could no longer keep up with the rider in front of her, but she had to be careful that Xuanyu didn’t overtake her. She managed to do so until four laps before the end of the race. But then she made a small mistake and lost the position after all. She therefore finished her first race in eighth place.
In the second race, Shimono started from eighth place. She got off to a good start again and was able to briefly attack on the inside. However, she ran out of room in turn two. While she had to brake, she was overtaken on the outside and dropped back to ninth place. She couldn’t find a way to counter for the remainder of the lap. At the end of the first lap, Akamatsu suddenly pitted and stopped the car. Shimono inherited eighth place and was stuck in the gearbox of the group ahead. The flowing track layout made overtaking difficult, and she was trapped there. Meanwhile, the battle in the leading group intensified. On lap five, disaster almost struck when one of the cars slid in corner 130R and nearly caused a serious crash. The driver managed to regain control in time. Further back, Shimono couldn’t find a way past Akita until the end of the race. Instead, she fell further and further behind and crossed the finish line four seconds behind him.
The last race held a promising third starting position for Shimono. However, the car in second place stalled at the start. Instead of celebrating inherited second place, she had to let the second Ponos Racing car, which had a perfect start, pass her. She managed to hold onto third place for the first lap before losing a position on the approach to the first corner in the second lap. She had already had to defend her position in the 130R and the chicane, which meant she lacked momentum for the straight. A similar scenario played out in the next lap, and she dropped back to fifth. She still lacked the pace compared to the more experienced drivers. From the fourth lap onward, the lap times stabilized. She was able to defend against Komatsu for a long time. The battle lasted for several laps until Muto intervened with five laps to go. The three of them approached the first corner, and Shimono lost her position to Komatsu. In the spoon corner, Muto pulls inside and forces her wide, so that position is lost as well. The two are faster and pull away. Shimono’s pace is enough to bring her home in seventh place.
With three top-ten finishes and one start from the second row, the season opener has been quite successful. The second race weekend at the end of May also takes place in Suzuka, and Shimono will try to build on their good results from round one.
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