Japanese
The FIA Motorsport Games, which is likened to the Olympics of Motor Sports, took place from October 23rd to 27th in Spain. And competing for Team Japan in the F4 CUP competition was Tosei Moriyama (HELM MOTORSPORTS), who performed well despite the difficulties of competing for the first time in the F4 machine with first-time tires and on a completely new track for him.
After arriving in Valencia, Spain, and checking in at the venue, Circuit Ricardo Tormo, on Wednesday the 23rd and completing the car inspections and seat fittings, the team attended the driver briefing session the following day, Thursday the 24th. Then, on Friday the 25th, the competitors participated in the two Free Practice sessions (1 and 2), in race machines composed of a Tatuus-made chassis mounting an Abarth-made 1.4 liter turbo-powered engine.
The 45-minute Free Practice 1 session held from 10:00 a.m. local time was run under conditions that involved some areas of wet track, with the air temperature at 16℃ and track surface temperature at 19℃ at the start. Moriyama entered the track along with the other machines but in the early stages of the session experienced machine trouble involving piping coming loose in the turbo assembly that resulted in some loss of running time. Also, due to the bad track condition in the early going, he suffered tire damage that prevented him from improving on his lap times.
Nonetheless, despite it being his first time driving on the Valencia track, Moriyama managed to finish his practice run with the 15th fastest lap time, just 1.2 sec. behind the leader.
Moriyama’s Comment:
“At first, I couldn’t run as I hope because of machine trouble. In the second half of the session, although the engine ran a bit slow, since it wasn’t that bad overall, I decided to keep running. However, since I had been running from the beginning of the session, the bad track conditions and the fact that it was wet caused damage to the tires that kept me from improving on my times. Since the cars that got the fastest times didn’t go out on the track until 15 to 20 minutes after the start of the session, I believe that gave them an advantage of about 1 sec. in their lap times. As for Free Practice 2, I want to talk with the engineers about what we can do to bring our times down.”
For the Free Practice 2 session that began at 5:05 in the afternoon of the same Friday the 25th, the air temperature was at 21℃ and track surface temperature at 24℃ at the start. For this 45-minute session the track condition was completely dry, and Moriyama concentrated on running many laps.
As mentioned earlier, this event was competed with a one-make Tatuus machine. What’s more, the basic settings and tire air pressure were equal for all of the cars, leaving only the rear stabilizer and the and rear wing adjustment the only elements open for set-up changes, which meant that the number of variations that the teams could try was extremely limited. And in these circumstances, Moriyama finished the session in 13th place.
Moriyama’s Comment:
“In this Free Practice 2 session we made various adjustments in the things we had tried in Free Practice 1 and concentrated on running as long as we could. With tomorrows qualifying in mind, we tried a variety of different running styles and made some changes in the set-up. I now want to see us check the various tendencies to prepare to go into tomorrow’s qualifying. We just have to do our best, but I hope to see us qualify in the top three.”
Saturday October 26th saw the holding of the Qualifying and the Qualifying Race, but because of the large number of Track limit violations in the previous day’s Free Practice, and emergency Drivers Briefing was called to enable the Stewards to give strict instructions to the drivers.
Then, at 8:30 in the morning it was time for a 25-minute qualifying session, and as a result of the previous day’s rain, the track was still wet, although it was not raining at the time. As a WET condition was declared, all of the cars went onto the track on wet-use tires to make their time attacks.
With the air temperature at 14℃ and the track surface temperature at 12℃, making for cooler conditions that the day before. Also, for Moriyama this was his first time running on the wet-use tires, and an accident occurred in which Moriyama collided with another car during one of his runs.
However, this didn’t result in any serious damage, and although it was s struggle to run on the new wet-use tires, Moriyama continued to run time attacks and finished the session with the 8th fastest time out of the 21 cars. Having risen one rank from yesterday’s results, it gave him a relatively good grid position for the afternoon’s Qualifying Race.
Moriyama’s Comment:
“The feeling in the Qualifying wasn’t bad, but I had trouble with those first wet-use tires. If I had been to improve on my time in the latter half, I think I could have gotten a high rank, but unfortunately, I had that collision with another car that threw my rhythm off. Looking ahead to the race, the first thing I need to do is raise my position in the Qualifying Race. I’ll do my best to do that.”
The 20-minute Qualifying Race was run from 12:50 in the afternoon. Here, the track condition had changed to dry, the air temperature was 19℃, the track surface temperature was 18℃ when the Qualifying Race began.
With several machines stalling out, Moriyama started from 8th position on the grid and rose to 7th position by the first corner. Behind him the same team was in charge of maintenance, so it meant that the representative from Israel became a sort of teammate. But at the end of the opening lap the driver from Israel got on Moriyama’s in-side and he got moved back into 8th position.
Until the middle stages of the race, it remained a crowded situation with rivals lined up in front and behind him that Moriyama had to deal with, but in the final stages of the race, although he was able to move up by a few tenths of a second, he wasn’t able to move up in position and ended up taking the checkered flag in 8th position.
Moriyama’s Comment:
“Since I was starting the Qualifying Race in 8th position, I concentrated on my start. The start went well, and I was able to pass one car and move up in position, but I was passed back later on. From there I felt that the pace would be severe, but I was able to keep up with the lead group. In terms of times, since I was in the top three, I think it would have been better if the track was dry. Since my pace wasn’t bad and I was able to put up a fight, this is a rank that I can be satisfied with, but I think there are still more things I can do, so I will work on that in preparing for the Race.”
After finishing in yesterday’s Qualifying Race in 8th place, in that race there were numerous violations of the Track limit, so it took a long time before the official race results were released, and since it turned out that one of the top finishers had committed a violation, Moriyama’s place was moved up to 7th. Because of this, in the final Race on Sunday the 27th, Moriyama would start his bid for a podium finish from 7th position on the starting grid.
The final 30-minute Race that would start from 12:10 in the afternoon, was held under a slightly overcast sky in somewhat chilly conditions with the air temperature at 14℃ and the Track surface temperature at 15℃ when the competition began.
When the red signal went off, all the competitors started out at once in a flurry, but Moriyama’s start was slightly delayed, and he ended up dropping to 8th position. On the opening lap, a fierce battle for 6th position developed in front of Moriyama. On the last corner of that lap, the driver behind Moriyama pulled up beside him and there was slight contact between Moriyama’s right front and the other driver’s left rear. That driver’s machine suffered some damage to its suspension that sent it off the track and back to its pit. As a result of this, Moriyama came through the opening lap in 8th position, but he would then be exposed to further pressure.
Moriyama then joined the competition for 6th place raging in front of him, but while running with due concern about the machines behind him, the gap to the machines in front of him increased to about 2 sec. It was here that the Safety Car came out to enable the recovery of a car that had run off the track, which eliminated the gap that had begun to expand in front of him.
When the Safety Car ended after just two minutes, the race was restarted with about remaining. When Moriyama restarted the race from 8th position, he found himself in a tight position with competitors just a few tenths of a second in front and behind him. From there he searched for chances to move up in position, but no opportunities arose before the race approached its end.
After having pulled somewhat ahead of the pursuers behind him and approached the drivers in front of him, the chance to overtake any of them never appeared before the 30-minute race came to an end with Moriyama taking the checkered flag in 8th place. But based on the decision that three of the top finishers had been given added-time penalties, the timing monitor showed Moriyama finishing in 5th place. However, after the race, recognition of the complaints by some of those drivers led to further adjustments, after which Moriyama was finally designated as having finish in 6th place.
Moriyama’s Comment:
“In the early going there was a collision that resulted from the other driver coming in and hitting me. I think that may have caused a slight disruption in the alignment that caused an effect on the front tires, but it didn’t have as much of an effect as I feared. In the end I was given 6th place, but from the early stages the pace was hard to maintain and the tire performance rapidly dropped to make things difficult, but since the Track Limit were strict, I tried not to violate them as I ran. In the end it was such a difficult race that I couldn’t do what I hoped to, so it was a disappointing race week for me. But I think that the experience of participating in this event has given me a chance to grow, so when I return to Japan, I will do my best to show the benefits I have learned from this. I want to thank everyone for your support this time.”
Being an experience of running for the first time on a European track on a machine and tires that he had never competed on before and competing against European teams for the first time. Amid all of these first experiences, Moriyama came within one step of a podium finish as a member of Team Japan competing in the FIA-F4 category and received high appraise from the local team staff. It was truly an event that showed his riding prowess at its best.
（Photos：HELM MOTORSPORTS / GTA）
| 4/13-14 | Round1 OKAYAMA | |
| 5/03-04 | Round2 FUJI | |
| 6/01-02 | Round3 SUZUKA | |
| 8/03-04 | Round4 FUJI | |
| 9/21-22 | Round6 SUGO | |
| 10/19-20 | Round7 AUTOPOLIS | |
| 11/02-03 | Round8 MOTEGI | |
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12/07-08 | Round5 SUZUKA |