After a season within the Ponos Nakajima Racing reserve, Gran Turismo World Series winner Igor Fraga will find a way to drive full-time in Super Formula in 2025.
Fraga, a Super Formula ambassador, last raced within the SF Series in 2023, collaborating within the Super Formula Lights junior season. It gave the impression to be a largely frustrating campaign, riddled with mechanical problems, but he still secured several podiums and one race win.
He has pulled double duty this season, racing for Anest Iwata within the Lexus RC F within the GT300 Super GT class. This position continued into 2024, so though he didn’t compete within the open wheel category, he was still conversant in the tracks utilized in each series.
Fraga took part within the official and debut Super Formula tests in December 2024 on the Suzuka circuit. Over the course of three days, he set the fastest time amongst novices – in addition to the fifth-fastest time overall – in a session that included recent Haas F1 driver Oliver Bearman, who took part in a track familiarization exercise.
Taking to the track on the ultimate, rookie-only day, Fraga set the perfect lap within the Honda-powered No. 64 Ponos Nakajima automotive with a time of 1:36.077. That was three-tenths ahead of the following best driver, Seita Nonaka, within the Toyota-powered Kids.com Team KCMG No. 8 automotive, with Bearman third and nearly second back.
During the complete three-day test, the fastest time of 1:35.597 was achieved by Tadasuke Makino, who took third place within the 2024 championship driving the award-winning Dandelion Racing automotive. His 2024 teammate Kakunoshin Ohta set the second-fastest time at 1:35.656.
Fraga will drive the No. 64 automotive for the complete 12-race season, which begins with a double-header at Suzuka in March and ends with a double-header at Suzuka in November. We don't know yet if he will even return to motion in Super GT, although there are not any schedule clashes between the 2 series…
