Super Formula Lights heads into its seventh season in 2026 with five previous junior single-seater champions. Not only is the annual battle of Honda and Toyota juniors expected to resume, but international drivers and two sons of former F1 drivers also add to the intrigue of the grid. Feeder Series tells you everything you need to know about Super Formula Lights’ 2026 season. 

By Finjo Muschlien

This season is the first time in Super Formula Lights’ history that neither Honda nor Toyota field a returning driver in the championship. Four manufacturer-backed drivers compete in the championship this season, and while Honda fields a graduate from Formula 4 with Kotaro Shimbara, all three of Toyota’s protégés not only previously raced in an F3 category but also won titles in single-seaters.

Yuto Nomura dominated the 2025 season and clinched the title with 12 wins, equalling the series’ record previously set by Ritomo Miyata in 2020. With that, the Honda junior was promoted to Super Formula with B-Max Racing, as was Toyota’s Rikuto Kobayashi, who steps up with TGMGP TGR-DC after finishing third last year. Yuki Sano, who got a head start with four wins in the first four races, is switching to FR Europe to compete with R-ace GP. 

The calendar

The calendar consists of six rounds with three races each, as was planned last year. Rounds two and three will support Super Formula. 

• Round 1: Fuji Speedway (26–29 March)
• Round 2: Autopolis International Racing Course (23–26 April) 
• Round 3: Suzuka International Racing Course (21–24 May)
• Round 4: Okayama International Circuit (11–14 June)
• Round 5: Sportsland Sugo (27–30 August)
• Round 6: Mobility Resort Motegi (10–13 September)

The format

Known for its high net track time and green-flag running in comparison with other series at a similar level, Super Formula Lights continues to offer up to four two-hour free practice sessions, of which two take place on Thursday and two on Friday. Two 10-minute qualifying sessions take place Saturday, with the first session setting the grid for the first race of the weekend and the second session doing the same for the second race. 

The grid for the third race is formed by the race results of the first race. The first race will be held on Saturday, with the second and third races taking place on Sunday. The race length for one of the races is 90 kilometres plus one lap, while the other two races are 60 kilometres plus one lap. The longer of these can be the opening or closing race, depending on the weekend.

Where to watch

All races will be live-streamed on the series’ official YouTube channel. Live timing will be available at sfl.racelive.jp.

Teams and drivers

All teams that competed in 2025 return in 2026. All bar three competitors hail from Japan.

B-Max Racing Team

B-Max Racing Team clinched their second teams’ title in 2025 following their first success in 2023. Thirteen wins in 18 races – of which 12 went on the account of Honda junior Yuto Nomura, who equalled the record for the most wins in a season – were enough to beat their longtime rivals TOM’S. 

The team enter the championship with five different satellites. They will continue their collaboration with Honda to field one of the manufacturer’s juniors at the main team. In the other seat, B-Max Racing Team have attracted international attention with their only previous single-seater title winner, a European driver whose accolades include winning last year’s Formula Regional Middle East Championship.

That driver is none other than Evan Giltaire (#1), who was the series’ hot topic at the end of 2025. With his FIA Super Licence secured but his budget limited, he missed out on a well-deserved step to FIA F3. The 19-year-old was initially expected to compete in a third season of FR Europe with ART Grand Prix after finishing seventh in 2024 and fifth in 2025, but those plans were scrapped before the season ended. Still, the French team will continue to support their countryman in his move to Japan, which came after he finished sixth at the Macau Grand Prix, his first race in East Asia. Giltaire began his Japanese career by topping three of the four sessions at Suzuka in the official Super Formula Lights post-season test in December in one of his first outings with the Dallara 324. 

Kotaro Shimbara (#50) will be Honda’s only junior in Super Formula Lights this season. The 21-year-old has been active in single seaters since 2021, when he first entered Japanese F4. In 2024, he came third in the series with Kageyama Racing with a win, while he finished in fourth place with two wins last year, when he raced for B-Max supported by Honda. 

Shimbara will also race in Super GT’s GT300 class with Team UpGarage this year, driving a Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo. 

At the B-Max Engineering team is Rintaro Sato (#26), the other driver with a prominent name on the team this year. The son of former F1 driver and two-time Indy 500 winner Takuma Sato, whose affiliation with Honda dates back three decades, enters his first season at the F3 level off the back of taking third place at the F4 World Cup in Macau. The rest of his 2025 was more difficult. The 20-year-old became a Honda junior for 2025 after winning the Honda Racing School prize the previous year. As part of his prize deal, he was sent to French F4, but he only secured one win and two further podium finishes and came ninth in the drivers’ championship, ultimately losing his Honda junior status at the end of the year.

As a financial result of the split from Honda, Sato is confirmed to compete only in the first half of the season. The team’s 2025 driver Zachary David, who is focussing on his education, is expected to return later on in the year. 

Alongside the three young drivers, B-Max will also field four drivers in the masters’ class, one of whom is Sato’s direct B-Max Engineering teammate. Team owner Ryuji Kumita continues to race in the championship, entering under his better-known pseudonym “Dragon” (#30). Having been racing since 2013, the 59-year-old won the masters’ class title in the series’ inaugural season in 2020 and 2024. “Dragon” came runner-up in Super Formula Lights and third in Japanese F4 last year. He will continue to run a dual campaign with Japanese F4 this year. 

Last year’s masters’ class champion Yasuhiro Shimizu (#8) will likewise return with the Art Taste Racing entrant, formerly called GNSY Racing. The 43-year-old will also race in Japanese F4 with the team this season. As a reward for his class win, Shimizu received the opportunity to participate in the Super Formula rookie test last year, although he crashed exiting Turn 2 on his first lap. 

Having won the class title thrice between 2021 and 2023, Nobuhiro Imada (#4) will again fight for the title in 2026 in the B-Max-run JMS Racing Team entry. The 61-year-old came only third in the class last year as he withdrew from two rounds, but he took six wins compared with runner-up Kumita’s two. Imada will also race in Japanese F4, in which he won the Independent Class title last year. 

“Ken Alex” (#6) will be the only full-season addition to the team’s gentleman driver roster as he steps up from Japanese F4. The 43-year-old, who will race for the Buzz Racing entry, competed in F4 for two years. He came fifth in the Independent Class last year, racing for the independent Buzz Racing team with the support of 2023 Super Formula Lights champion Iori Kimura. “Ken Alex” himself made his debut in the final round of Super Formula Lights last year and took a class win in the second race.

TOM’S

TOM’S is Japan’s most successful racing team at the national or regional F3 level, with 27 titles in Japanese F3, FR Japan and Super Formula Lights since 1987. In past seasons, the Toyota factory-backed racing team fielded big talents including Toyota juniors Jin Nakamura, Rikuto Kobayashi and Yuki Sano. This year, the team fields a line-up fully composed of drivers entering their first season in the championship. Despite their inexperience, the drivers have substantial pedigree, having all won titles in single-seaters in the past two years. 

Kiyoshi Umegaki (#35) most notably won the FR Japan title with the team in 2025. The 18-year-old, competing in his second year of single-seater racing, won the championship in a close fight with Tokiya Suzuki. The Toyota junior also raced in Japanese F4 in the past two seasons, finishing seventh each time, and he also competed in the FR World Cup at Macau with Van Amersfoort Racing, though he did not finish the race. 

This year, Umegaki will also compete in Super GT’s GT300 class, driving Carguy’s Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo, as well as in endurance championship Super Taikyu’s ST-2 class with KTMS. 

Fellow Toyota junior Tokiya Suzuki (#38) likewise steps up from the same dual campaign as Umegaki. The 19-year-old won the Japanese F4 title last year in a controversial title decider at Motegi, but he had to settle for second in FR Japan. Suzuki also competed at Macau with TOM’S, being classified 22nd in the race after a late accident.

He also raced in Super Taikyu’s ST-2 class with KTMS, finishing second in class, and he will continue to race in the championship this year, though he switches to the ST-Q class with GR Team Spirit. That will come alongside his maiden Super GT campaign in the GT300 class with Rookie Racing’s Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo.

Oscar Wurz (#36) is Toyota’s only international junior driver in 2026. The son of former F1 and Toyota factory driver Alexander Wurz won the F4 CEZ title in 2024 and moved up to Eurocup-3 with Drivex for 2025, finishing 14th and 18th in the winter and main championships respectively. In early 2025, the Austrian was heavily linked to a step up to FIA F3 with AIX Racing in 2026, but his dad’s close connection to Toyota as an advisor to their racing programmes helped earn the 18-year-old and his older brother, F3 graduate Charlie Wurz, the opportunity to move to Super Formula Lights and Super Formula respectively. 

Akshay Bohra (#37) will be TOM’S’ other international driver, although he will be the only driver in the line-up without the backing of Toyota. The 19-year-old American-born Indian driver won the Euro 4 title in 2024 and stepped up to FRegional Europe with R-ace GP last year. He came sixth in the drivers’ championship with a win and five further podium finishes. 

Delightworks Racing

This year is a special one in Delightworks Racing’s short history as they debut in Super Formula with former F2 driver Nobuharu Matsushita. The team entered Super Formula’s feeder series last season with former Honda juniors Souta Arao and Yusuke Mitsui but had a rather uneventful year and finished third in the teams’ championship with one second-place finish, secured by Mitsui. 

Yusuke Mitsui (#3) will return for his second season in the championship with the team. The 23-year-old became the team’s lead driver last year, which was not a surprise given his previous performances in Japanese F4, in which he finished second in 2022 and third in 2023. He then spent 2024 in GT and endurance racing.

Mitsui continued to race in the discipline last year and will do so again this year as he tackles Super Taikyu’s ST-2 class with Team Spoon. 

Kazuhisa Urabe (#2) switches over from B-Max Racing, having done a dual campaign of Super Formula Lights and Formula Regional Japan last year. The 20-year-old former Toyota junior came third in FRegional Japan last year, as he also did in the Porsche Carrera Cup Japan. Urabe ended the year by competing in the Super Formula rookie test with Inging, the team owned by his father.

As was the case last year, Urabe is also confirmed to be competing in Super GT’s GT300 class with Inging. 

LM corsa

LM corsa first entered Super Formula Lights in 2024 with Reimei Ito. Both team and driver never stood in the spotlight, and Ito only secured two points finishes in one and a half years in the championship. 

For this year, the team have opted to field a much younger driver. Kenta Kumagai (#60) steps up from Japanese F4 having spent the past two seasons racing for OTG Motor Sports, which was possible thanks to a scholarship programme organised by the championship. In 2025, the 20-year-old came ninth in the championship and secured his maiden podium finish. 

The grid at a glance

Team	#	Driver
B-Max Racing Team	1	Evan Giltaire
	50	Kotaro Shimbara (R)
B-Max Racing Engineering	26	Rintaro Sato (R)
	30	“Dragon” (M)
JMS Racing Team	4	Nobuhiro Imada (M)
Buzz Racing	6	“Ken Alex” (M)
Art Taste Racing	8	Yasuhiro Shimizu (M)
TOM’S	35	Kiyoshi Umegaki
	36	Oscar Wurz
	37	Akshay Bohra
	38	Tokiya Suzuki
Delightworks Racing	2	Kazuhisa Urabe
	3	Yusuke Mitsui
LM corsa	60	Kenta Kumagai (R)

Header photo credit: Super Formula Lights