Dominance of Dandelion Racing is a novelty in Tremendous Formulation

Honda-powered squad Dandelion Racing began its 2025 season with 4 consecutive wins, throughout the opening double-headers at Suzuka and Motegi, with its drivers Tadasuke Makino and Kakunoshin Ohta selecting up two wins apiece.

Together with final yr’s closing double at Suzuka, which was swept by Ohta, Dandelion has gained the final six races in a row — the final time that was carried out was by Nakajima Racing, all the best way again in 2000. That yr, which was dominated by ex-Formulation 1 racer Toranosuke Takagi, was additionally the final time a staff opened a marketing campaign with 4 straight victories.

Makino and Ohta are each 20 factors clear within the drivers’ championship over third-placed Ayumu Iwasa, the Racing Bulls F1 reserve who leads Workforce Mugen’s cost. The groups’ title already seems just about a carried out take care of Dandelion on over double the factors of Mugen.

It’s a exceptional run of kind for the small Kyoto-based staff, which has simply 25 everlasting employees and was shaped in 1993 by Kiyoshi Muraoka to race in All-Japan Formulation 3.

After struggling for outcomes each in F3 and the now-defunct Japan Touring Automobile Championship, which ran to Tremendous Touring guidelines, Dandelion first entered what was then often known as Formulation Nippon in 1999 with a single automotive for little-known Argentinian driver Ruben Derfler.

The early years in Formulation Nippon have been robust going, however the charismatic Muraoka was busy constructing the foundations for future success. In 2001, he signed Norimitsu Yoshida as chief engineer, starting a partnership that continues to the current day. Later that season he signed a take care of the Sauber F1 staff to offer technical assist.

However results-wise, it was solely after the staff signed Ulsterman Richard Lyons to exchange an underperforming Jonathan Cochet in mid-2002 that issues took an upturn.

With the assistance of engineer Rob Arnott, who joined the staff in 2003, Lyons scored Dandelion’s first win that yr at Suzuka, which proved the springboard to a profitable title bid the next yr. Muraoka additionally credit the staff’s growth to a second automotive and the work of veteran Naoki Hattori (who did not qualify for 2 grands prix at Coloni again in 1991) as Lyons’ team-mate throughout this era as one other consider Dandelion’s rise.

When the present Toyota versus Honda engine rivalry started in 2006, Dandelion joined the Honda camp. Beginning with Takuya Izawa in 2009, it was charged with serving to prepare the marque’s younger drivers, its relationship with Honda evolving from that of mere engine provider to one thing a lot deeper.

A primary groups’ title got here in 2012 with Izawa and one other Honda protege, Koudai Tsukakoshi. After a fallow interval throughout the SF14 period (the spotlight of which was Stoffel Vandoorne’s pair of wins in 2016 on his method to F1), Dandelion bounced again within the first yr of the SF19 with one other groups’ title, adopted by a second drivers’ title for Naoki Yamamoto in 2020.

“What we are attempting to reveal is that privateer groups can nonetheless do nice issues, like within the previous days of motorsport” Kiyoshi Muraoka

Fixed chopping-and-changing within the driver line-up, with Yamamoto and Nirei Fukuzumi leaving in consecutive years, precipitated Dandelion’s star to wane once more considerably. The primary season with the revised SF23 machine additionally regarded prefer it could possibly be one to overlook, earlier than a productive in-season check at Fuji catapulted Makino and then-rookie Ohta up the order, culminating with the latter getting his first win on the finish of that season.

Makino broke his victory duck in emotional fashion final yr at Autopolis, with he and Ohta delivering Dandelion its third groups’ title. Now with each its drivers on the head of the standings, cut up by only a single level, Muraoka has set the specific goal of profitable the drivers’ and groups’ crowns in the identical yr for the primary time within the squad’s historical past.

Dandelion’s present success, on paper, shouldn’t be potential. Lean in dimension, it will get by with simply two engineers per automotive at a time that almost all different groups have three, with the likes of Mugen and TOM’S having much more than that. The ultra-experienced Yoshida takes on the twin position of race engineer to Ohta’s #6 automotive and staff director.

Blooming within the springtime: the Dandelion duo bought 2025 off to a positive begin at Suzuka

Photograph by: Masahide Kamio

Primarily based in Kameoka Metropolis close to Kyoto, Dandelion can be considerably remoted from the primary hub of the Japanese motorsport trade within the Gotemba space (two hours’ drive from Tokyo, close to Fuji), the place most Tremendous Formulation groups are based mostly.

This makes it difficult to recruit new employees, though it additionally fosters a way of loyalty among the many members it does appeal to, and helps cease any secrets and techniques from leaking. The F1 equal – fittingly sufficient, given Dandelion’s former affiliation – could be Sauber.

Placing the situation to at least one facet, maybe the higher F1 analogue could be Williams as, just like the Grove squad, Dandelion exists purely to compete and win in its chosen self-discipline. 

It doesn’t compete in every other classes, eschewing Japan’s different high sequence, Tremendous GT, through which the likes of TOM’S, Mugen and Nakajima are all energetic. “I feel this offers us a type of purity I feel different groups don’t have,” Muraoka instructed Autosport in an interview final yr.

Ex-Formulation 2 racer Makino and new rising star Ohta additionally deserve their share of the credit score for Dandelion’s 2025 kind, their pleasant rivalry pushing the pair to ever-greater heights.

Each seem like official title contenders, and the pressure their up-to-now cordial relationship will come beneath is certain to be a speaking level because the season develops, particularly after Ohta was left fuming after the second race of the Suzuka opener after being handed by Makino whereas beneath the impression the staff had instructed him to remain behind.

Muraoka may nicely have a job on his arms retaining the pair in test because the prize nears, however after a pair of 1-2 finishes for his drivers at Motegi, it’s all good vibes for now. Certainly, at Motegi, the flamboyant staff proprietor appeared within the parc ferme interview to jokingly inform long-time sponsor NTT Docomo to open its pockets and cough up some win bonuses!

After Dandelion gained the groups’ title in 2019, Muraoka had introduced his retirement, however a mix of circumstances amid the COVID-19 pandemic lastly meant he stayed on as the general public ‘face’ of the staff. Tremendous Formulation, which is utilizing the slogan ‘Human Motorsport’ to advertise itself, is all of the richer for having him round.

The staff adopted up its Suzuka clear sweep with one other within the subsequent spherical at Motegi

Photograph by: Masahide Kamio

And in an period through which cash is king, it’s refreshing to see an underdog outfit like his that’s nonetheless able to upsetting the percentages.

“In most championships, you must be a producer or have a detailed alliance with a producer to win,” stated Muraoka. “What we are attempting to reveal is that privateer groups can nonetheless do nice issues, like within the previous days of motorsport. I feel if a staff like ours didn’t exist any extra, the championship could be much less fascinating.” Amen to that.