Makino tops Suzuka Super Formula test as Bearman stars

Tadasuke Makino was fastest across three days of post-season Super Formula testing at Suzuka, as Haas Formula 1 signing Oliver Bearman went third-fastest on the final day.

Dandelion Racing driver Makino was in action for the first two days of the test, and set a new unofficial record at Suzuka since the SF23’s introduction with a best time of 1m35.597s in the afternoon session on Thursday.

That was just 0.059s clear of team-mate Kakunoshin Ota, who skipped Wednesday’s running to attend Honda’s 2025 presentation in Tokyo before returning to action on Thursday.

Ota’s absence on Wednesday afforded Makino a rare chance to drive both Dandelion cars, swapping between the #5 and #6 cars multiple times, although all his best laptimes were recorded at the wheel of the #5 car.

Friday’s final day of running was reserved for rookies, with Bearman the star attraction as he took over the #7 KCMG car driven this season by Kamui Kobayashi.

The 2025 Haas F1 driver set the third-fastest time of the day in the morning session, a 1m36.940s, putting him behind Nakajima Racing’s Igor Fraga and Seita Nonaka, who switched to KCMG’s #8 car for Friday after driving the #7 on Thursday.

However, turbo failure brought Bearman’s afternoon session to an early end, although improvements were few and far between as Inging driver Yuui Tsutsumi, who drives for the team in SUPER GT, suffered a crash in the closing stages.

Fraga, who is the overwhelming favourite to take over the retired Naoki Yamamoto’s drive at Nakajima Racing in 2025, was the fastest on the final day, with his lap of 1m36.077s putting him fifth overall for the test behind Sena Sakaguchi (Inging) and Tomoki Nojiri (Mugen).

The other Nakajima car of Ren Sato, whose place in the team for next season was confirmed by Honda on Wednesday, was sixth, ahead of Toshiki Oyu (Inging), this year’s champion Sho Tsuboi (TOM’S), Nonaka and Atsushi Miyake (ThreeBond).

Sacha Fenestraz was 11th-fastest for TOM’S as he made his Super Formula return after losing his Nissan Formula E drive at the end of last season, just ahead of Red Bull junior Ayumu Iwasa in the second of the Mugen cars.

Bearman ended up fifth-fastest of the rookies for the entire test behind Super Formula Lights champion Shun Koide (B-Max) and Oliver Rasmussen (Impul).

Of the other international newcomers, Williams F1 junior Zak O’Sullivan was eighth-fastest on Friday and 24th overall for Kondo Racing, just ahead of fellow Briton James Hedley, son of early 1990s British F3 racer Gray, also driving for Kondo.

Juan Manuel Correa also drove for Kondo on the second day of the test in the #4 car that his former F2 rival O’Sullivan took over on Friday, going 18th-fastest on that day and 27th of the 31 drivers entered for the test.

Suzuka test results: