Autosport 2021 Top 50: #28 Tomoki Nojiri

It may have taken until his eighth season in the series, but Honda man Tomoki Nojiri finally capitalised on the speed he had previously shown on a sporadic basis to become Super Formula’s most dominant champion in a decade in 2021. Three wins in the first five races afforded the Mugen driver the luxury of winning the title with a round to spare.

In Super GT, Nojiri was equally formidable in the ARTA NSX-GT he shared with Nirei Fukuzumi. His finest moment came at Motegi, when he applied the pressure on the Impul Nissan and took advantage when the GT-R ran out of fuel to score back-to-back wins.

Slow-burner Nojiri’s late-career transformation

For much of his career, Nojiri in Super Formula had a reputation for being fast but inconsistent. From his 2014 debut until his final season at Dandelion Racing in 2018, he mustered only one win and three poles with a best finish in the championship of seventh. But since moving to Mugen in 2019 and forging his current partnership with engineer Toshihiro Ichise, he’s emerged as a true force to be reckoned with.

Last season, Nojiri went into the final race at Fuji with an outside chance of the title, only for a slow pitstop and then a puncture to end his hopes. In his champion’s press conference, Nojiri said that his belief he was the ‘moral champion’ of 2020 gave him fuel heading into the 2021 campaign, which he opened with a dominant win at the same track.

Nojiri emerged as a dominant force in Super Formula, having never finished higher than his fourth place in 2019

Photo by: Masahide Kamio

Ryan Dingle, who engineers Nojiri in Super GT and works with the Mugen team in Super Formula, describes the 32-year-old as “criminally underrated”, in part because of his age and the fact he has never raced abroad. But he’s convinced that Nojiri will be tough to beat now he’s found the final piece of the puzzle to unlock his full talent.

“On pure pace in a car he likes, he’s as fast as anybody, and now he also knows how to make the car that he wants,” says Dingle of Nojiri. ”He has gained that breadth of ability this year with the race set-up, where the car isn’t quite where you want it to be. That he could overcome that in his early 30s is a testament to his focus and determination, and the fact he did it while maintaining the speed that he had before is really impressive.

“He is very detailed with his feedback and looking at the way he worked in Super Formula with his engineer [Ichise] and how we worked in Super GT in the latter half of the year, he showed we need to be on that level to win championships on merit. Now he’s done it once, he knows what to do and I think he’s going to be strong for the next few years.”