GP2 Champion and McLaren reserve driver Stoffel Vandoorne flew from a successful weekend in Bahrain (where he won his sixth victory of the year) to Japan to test a Super Formula car at Suzuka. The Belgian rising star is expected to race in Japan next year, while also attending all the Grands Prix and doing simulator work. The aim is to keep him race sharp for 2017. Vandoorne tested for the leading Honda team: Docomo Dandelion Racing, which ran Tomoki Nojiri (26), who finished seventh in the championship and 38-year-old Indian former F1 driver Narain Karthikeyan, who was 11th. Vandoorne has since returned to AbuDhabi, where he will race in the championship finale this weekend. If he wins again he will become the man with the highest number of wins in GP2 history, overtaking Pastor Maldonado. It should be added that Vandoorne has achieved this in two seasons, while it took Maldonado four. Nine of Vandoorne’s 10 wins have been in feature races, an unrivalled feat.
The Super Formula has the fastest racing cars outside F1, with lap times at Suzuka that would qualify for the GP. The cars are powered by 2.0-litre four-cylinder engines from Honda and Toyota, which produced around 550 hp. The cars are lighter than GP2s and feature DRS.
joeblogsf1 
Please don’t mention the engine specs and prowess. Imagine Todt and Bernie hearing about it, they’d instantly want it for F1!
Can’t wait for him to make the F1 grid, such an exciting prospect!
Hi Joe
What is the benefit of moving to Super Formula from GP2?
As I have explained in the piece, it is a step up and it keeps him race-fit
Thanks Joe
Once you’ve won GP2 you can’t keep racing in it.
A 550 hp engine and they could get within 107%? Pretty impressive stuff. I’m sure they use more fuel etc, but does kind of make you wonder where all the money in F1 R&D goes if a lower and cheaper formula can get that close! Maybe they have ground effect & sticky tyres ….!
Don’t forget Pad-Rock, Super Formula are largely using Honda engines (probably size zero pieces of jewelry) hence them being rocket ships! ;o)
Superformula uses Bridgestone tires, and they do have venturi tunnels under the floor to give them some ground effect.
They have just changed supplier and will use Yokohama in the future
Valid point @Pad-Rock!
I keep praying he’ll be on the F1 grid in 2017. Not that difficult to support him, since he’s a fellow-Belgian. And just as the Dutch can now say their compatriot deserves to be in F1, I think we Belgians can say the same now. Even if I try to look at it objectively (probably impossible 😉 ), I still see no reason for F1 to not let this talent have a decent chance.
The guy ‘Stoffel’ deserves a F1 seat.
He will get one
thanks Joe !
Why didn’t Magnussen opt for a similar move to Japan, Joe? Was he simply ‘out of sync’ for a seat at McLaren?
….and can you find coverage or highlights of Super Formula on UK TV? I can’t. Remember Sky doing a 3 hour motorsports programme years ago and getting to watch Formula Nippon (as it was in those days).
This seems like a very positive sideways(ish) move.
Go to Japan, make friends with the Honda loving public and race some faster cars. When Jenson asks for a pay rise / contract extension later in 2016, Ron gets revenge for the extra ‘chunk’ he thought he wouldn’t have to pay him for 2016 and sticks young Stoffel in instead for 2017.
When Alonso tried to blackmail Ron in 2007 for #1 status, Ron had none of it and decided to DQ his team and pay lots of $$$ (by reporting McLaren’s cheating to the FIA). Sometimes I think Ron paid $$$ just to watch Alonso suffer in the McLaren Honda.
Super Formula is faster than Indycars?
I’m quite sure they are.
Also, one must not forget that the engine Super Formula uses is the same to be adopted in the Class 1 formula. Some teams are using it in SuperGT and DTM has been slated to run them from 2017, but now it seems less likely so.
Sorry, Gabor, but what is Class 1 formula? Never heard of it.
Class 1 is the new DTM/SuperGT top class. DTM and GT500 cars in SuperGT are already built around the same monocoque and built to the same regulations.
GT500 cars are (or some of them are) using the same engines that Super Formula introduced at the beginning of last year. DTM is scheduled to introduce the same formula of engines from 2017, but it seems they are not so keen doing it according the latest rumours.
Whatever the case will be, GT500 and DTM is now built to the same specifications minus the engine (called Class 1) and they could – in theory – race in the same field.
IMSA was working on introducing their own Class 1 formula as well, but it fell through recently.
I didn’t realise until now that Super Formula was the fastest outside F1. I had always assumed it was Indycar.
IndyCar is faster than F1 if you take their oval performance. But not on road courses.
2017, out with the old in with Stoffel and Max?
Stoffel is an old man compared to Max!
I reckon old man Jenson would still beat both in a triathlon! (Possibly not in a race car though…;)
Congratulations and good luck to Stoffel.
Joe, does this post indicate, that you regard Stoffel as the better driver/prospect, compared to Kevin Magnussen? I guess, that’s what McLaren do. As a Dane, it’s sad to see KMag in “nowhere-land”.
As a result of:
– Not taking his chance in the second half of 2014, under huge pressure as a rookie?
– An incompetent manager?
– Simply, not quite good enough?
Ole
No, I think Kevin is exceptional and should be in F1. Unfortunately he turned up at the wrong time and there were Alonso and Button, two World Champions, in his way. It would be a crime for him not to have a drive in F1 next year. I hope it works out with Manor.
Kevin and Manor……had not come across that.
Thanks for your reply. Surprised, that Manor might be realistic – I thought that would require a huge pile of money, and that a ton of “pay-drivers” are queing up for those seats. Also, the Lowdon/Booth resignations doesn’t seem to indicate, that everything is great at Manor?
Ole,
I guess with a (former?) Mclaren guy running the team, maybe Ron has an influence on their drivers and can try to do Kevin a favour?
Hopefully anyway!
As much as I love Jenson I do feel bad about what happened to Kevin!
Do you think Magnussen will get the nod over Vandoorne Joe, if Alonso takes a sabbatical in 2016 which seems increasingly lightly if current rumours are to be believed?
Definitely not. Magnussen is out.