2020 Formula D season

2020 Formula D

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The 2020 Formula D season (officially titled Formula Drift Pro Championship) was the seventeenth season of the Formula D series. The season began on September 5 at World Wide Technology Raceway and concluded on November 22 at Toyota Speedway at Irwindale after eight events.

Entries

2012 Formula D season champion Daigo Saito planned to return to the series after a four-year absence, but this never materialised. ^[1]

Team	No.	Car	Tires	Driver	Round(s)
Alec Robbins Racing	35	Nissan 350Z	Achilles	Alec Robbins [2]  R	1–4, 7–8
Arclight Racing	43	Dodge Viper ZB II	Achilles	Dean Kearney [3]	All
	357	Chevrolet Corvette C7 Z06	Achilles	João Barion [4]	1–4
Asphalt Anarchy	82	Cadillac ATS-V	Achilles	Taylor Hull [5]	All
Bakchis Motorsports	723	Nissan Silvia S15	Falken	Aurimas Bakchis [6]	All
BUY NOW JAPAN	530	Nissan Silvia S15	Nexen	Wataru Masuyama [7]  R	All
Drift Cave Motorsports	777	Chevrolet Corvette C6	Falken	Matt Field [8]	All
Drift Force	91	BMW F22	Achilles	Yves Meyer [9]  R	1–4
Essa Autosport	101	BMW M3 E46	Achilles	Michael Essa [10]	All
Garagistic drift team	171	BMW M3 E36	Achilles	Rome Charpentier [11]  R	All
Huddy Racing	129	BMW M3 E46	Achilles	Dylan Hughes [12]	All
Jeff Jones Racing	818	Nissan 370Z	Nexen GT Radial [a]	Jeff Jones [13]	All
Jhonnattan Castro	17	Toyota GT86	Nexen	Jhonnattan Castro [14]	All
KGMS Toyota Racing	21	Toyota GR Supra	Achilles	Ken Gushi [15]	All
KORUWORKS	909	Nissan 350Z	GT Radial	Ryan Litteral [16]	All
Kyle Mohan Racing	99	Mazda RX-8	Nexen	Kyle Mohan [17]	5–8
LZMFG / Enjuku Racing	5	Nissan Silvia S15	Achilles	Adam LZ [18]  R	All
NOS Energy Drink Drift Team	64	Nissan 370Z Nissan Silvia S14 [b]	Nexen	Chris Forsberg [19]	All
Papadakis Racing	151	Toyota GR Supra	Nitto	Fredric Aasbø [20]	All
	411	Toyota Corolla (E210)	Nitto	Ryan Tuerck [21]	All
Pawlak Racing	13	Ford Mustang	Falken	Justin Pawlak [22]	All
RAD Industries	34	Toyota Supra A80	Nexen	Dan Burkett [23]	All
RTR Motorsports	25	Ford Mustang RTR Spec 5-D	Nitto	Vaughn Gittin, Jr. [24]	All
	88	Ford Mustang RTR	Nitto	Chelsea DeNofa [25]	All
Shelby American Drift Team	7	Shelby Super Snake	Nexen	Tyler Nelson [26]  R	1–6
	23	Shelby Super Snake Nissan 240SX [c]	Nexen	Jonathan Nerren [27]  R	All
Team DAI.	9	Subaru BRZ	Falken	Daijiro Yoshihara [28]	All
Team Faruk	53	Nissan Silvia S14	Nexen	Faruk Kugay [29]	All
Team UPGARAGE with GT Radial	123	Nissan Silvia S15	GT Radial	Kazuya Taguchi [30]	All
Travis Reeder Motorsports	77	Nissan 240SX	GT Radial	Travis Reeder [31]	All

R Eligible for Rookie of the Year

Schedule

An initial schedule featuring eight championship rounds was released in November 2019, but this was revised in April 2020 to a different schedule still featuring eight rounds. A final calendar was announced in June 2020 featuring four double-header rounds.

Round	Title	Circuit	Location	Date	Winner	Car
1	Crossroads	World Wide Technology Raceway	Madison, Illinois	September 5	Fredric Aasbø	Toyota GR Supra
2				September 6 [d]	Chelsea DeNofa	Ford Mustang RTR
3	Throwdown	Evergreen Speedway	Monroe, Washington	September 26	Vaughn Gittin, Jr.	Ford Mustang RTR Spec 5-D
4				September 27 [e]	Vaughn Gittin, Jr.	Ford Mustang RTR Spec 5-D
5	Showdown	Texas Motor Speedway	Fort Worth, Texas	October 31	Ryan Tuerck	Toyota Corolla (E210)
6				November 1 [f]	Chris Forsberg	Nissan 370Z
7	TYPE S Title Fight Weekend	Irwindale Speedway	Irwindale, California	November 20	Fredric Aasbø	Toyota GR Supra
8				November 22 [g]	Aurimas Bakchis	Nissan Silvia S15
Sources: [32] [33] [34] [35] [36] [37] [38] [39]

The following rounds were included on the original calendar, but were cancelled in response to the COVID-19 pandemic:

Title	Circuit	Location	Date
Streets of Long Beach	Streets of Long Beach	Long Beach, California	April 11
	Orlando Speed World	Orlando, Florida	May 30
	Road Atlanta	Braselton, Georgia	July 4 [h]
	Old Bridge Township Raceway Park	Englishtown, New Jersey	July 25 [i]
	Sonoma Raceway	Sonoma, California	September 13
Sources: [40] [41] [32]

Championship standings

Scoring system

Formula Drift featured double-header weekends throughout 2020 in order to maintain an eight-event schedule. This compressed the schedule of each event, so traditional qualifying was scrapped and replaced by a seeding process based on, but not limited to, championship standings, similar to the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series.

For this reason, points were only awarded for the main event, which features a maximum of 32 competitors. The competitors proceed through a series of competition heats, with those eliminated in the first round (Top 32) receiving 16 points and classifying 17th through 32nd, the second round (Sweet 16) receiving 32 points and classifying 9th through 16th, and the third round (Great 8) receiving 48 points and classifying 5th through 8th. The two drivers eliminated from the fourth round (Final Four) engage in a battle for the final step on the podium, with the fourth-placed driver receiving 64 points and the third-placed driver 76 points and a trophy. In the Final, the runner-up receives 88 points and the winner 100 points.

Final classification within each round was determined by highest seeding position; for example, of the four drivers eliminated in the Great 8, the driver seeded highest going into the event is awarded 5th position. ^[42]

Position	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th–8th	9th–16th	17th–32nd
Points	100	88	76	64	48	32	16

Pro Championship standings

Pos Driver WWT1 WWT2 EVS1 EVS2 TEX1 TEX2 IRW1 IRW2 Pts 1 Vaughn Gittin, Jr. 10 13 1 1 3 2 4 6 540 2 Chelsea DeNofa 12 1 13 4 9 3 3 2 500 3 Ryan Tuerck 2 3 11 3 1 6 10 9 484 4 Fredric Aasbø 1 12 2 18 7 5 1 17 448 5 Chris Forsberg 4 11 9 5 2 1 9 10 428 6 Aurimas Bakchis 3 2 12 10 11 13 18 1 408 7 Justin Pawlak 6 6 6 2 17 [j] 16 19 3 372 8 Michael Essa 13 7 3 17 15 15 2 14 356 9 Jeff Jones 14 15 17 [k] 7 4 10 12 4 320 10 Taylor Hull 15 17 8 6 5 9 7 5 320 11 Kazuya Taguchi 5 10 5 13 13 7 6 12 320 12 Adam LZ  RY  25 25 14 9 6 4 5 13 288 13 Daijiro Yoshihara 11 14 4 14 14 8 11 18 288 14 Matt Field 9 4 7 12 12 14 14 20 288 15 Dylan Hughes 7 5 10 11 18 18 20 15 240 16 Jonathan Nerren  R  29 29 30 29 8 11 17 7 208 17 Dean Kearney 19 19 22 8 10 12 13 19 208 18 Ken Gushi 17 8 19 20 21 21 22 8 192 19 Travis Reeder 18 16 20 21 22 22 8 11 192 20 Dan Burkett 8 9 18 19 20 20 16 22 192 21 Jhonnattan Castro 20 20 23 22 16 17 15 21 160 22 Wataru Masuyama  R  26 26 15 15 19 19 21 23 160 23 Ryan Litteral 21 21 24 23 23 23 23 16 144 24 Rome Charpentier  R  23 23 26 25 24 24 24 24 128 25 Faruk Kugay 24 24 27 26 25 25 25 25 128 26 Alec Robbins  R  16 18 21 16 27 27 128 27 Tyler Nelson  R  28 28 29 28 26 26 96 28 Kyle Mohan 27 27 26 26 64 29 João Barion 22 22 25 24 64 30 Yves Meyer  R  27 27 28 27 64 Sources: [43] [44] [45] [46] [47] [48] [49] [50] [51] [52] [53] [54] [55] [56] [57] [58]

In-line notation Bold Top seed  RY  Rookie of the Year  R  Rookie

Auto Cup standings

Auto Cup points are awarded each round to the two drivers with the highest classified finish for each manufacturer. To be eligible, both the chassis and engine must have been constructed by that manufacturer. For example, the Shelby Super Snakes entered by Tyler Nelson and Jonathan Nerren were not eligible for Ford points because their engines had been developed by Shelby American, the Nissan Silvia S15 entered by Aurimas Bakchis was not eligible because it featured a custom-built V8 engine, ^[59] and the Nissan Silvia S14 entered by Chris Forsberg in the final round was not eligible for the same reason.

Pos	Manufacturer	WWT1	WWT2	EVS1	EVS2	TEX1	TEX2	IRW1	IRW2	Pts
1	Ford	6	1	1	1	3	2	3	2	1140
		10	6	6	2	9	3	4	3
2	Toyota	1	3	2	3	1	5	1	8	980
		2	8	11	18	7	6	10	9
3	Nissan	4	10	5	5	2	1	6	12	716
		5	11	9	13	13	7	9
4	BMW	13	7	3	17	15	15	2	14	356
5	Chevrolet	9	4	7	12	12	14	14	20	352
		22	22	25	24
6	Cadillac	15	17	8	6	5	9	7	5	320
7	Dodge	19	19	22	8	10	12	13	19	208
8	Mazda					27	27	26	26	64

Tire Cup Standings

Tire Cup points are awarded each round to the two drivers with the highest classified finish for each tire manufacturer.

Pos	Tire	WWT1	WWT2	EVS1	EVS2	TEX1	TEX2	IRW1	IRW2	Pts
1	Nitto	1	1	1	1	1	2	1	2	1380
		2	3	2	3	3	3	3	6
2	Falken	3	2	4	2	11	8	11	1	892
		6	4	6	10	12	13	14	3
3	Achilles	7	5	3	6	5	4	2	5	820
		13	7	8	8	6	9	5	8
4	Nexen	4	9	9	5	2	1	9	7	732
		8	11	15	15	8	11	15	10
5	GT Radial	5	10	5	7	4	7	6	4	640
		18	16	17	13	13	10	8	11

Footnotes

1. Jones used Nexen tires for the first events at St Louis but switched to GT Radial for the remainder of the season.
2. Forsberg suffered an engine failure with his primary Nissan 370Z in practice for the final weekend at Irwindale. He was able to make rudimentary repairs and, having received a bye run for round 7, took the run before withdrawing from the event for safety reasons. For the finale, Matt Field lent Forsberg his backup car, a Nissan Silvia S14 with an LS engine. This marked the first time Forsberg had competed in Formula Drift without Nissan power.
3. Nerren blew an engine in the closing stages of the Washington round, so used a backup Nissan 240SX at Texas Motor Speedway.
4. The Missouri round was originally scheduled to take place on August 8, but was revised to a double-header.
5. The Seattle round was originally scheduled to take place on July 18, but was rescheduled to September 26 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Ultimately, this was revised to a double-header.
6. The Texas round was added to the first revised schedule in April, slated for October 17. This was later revised to a double-header, before being pushed back two weeks when Texas Motor Speedway cleared its calendar leading up to the NASCAR Cup Series race due to uncertainties over the pandemic.
7. The traditional Irwindale finale was originally scheduled to take place on October 17, but was rescheduled to November 21 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with an extra round added for August 22. Ultimately, this was revised to a double-header to close the season.
8. The Road Atlanta road was originally scheduled to take place on May 9, but was rescheduled due to the COVID-19 pandemic before ultimately being cancelled.
9. The Englishtown round was originally scheduled to take place on June 20, but was rescheduled due to the COVID-19 pandemic before ultimately being cancelled.
10. Pawlak suffered an engine failure in practice.
11. Jones received a bye run in the Top 32 but crashed in practice. He was unable to complete the bye run, so was scored outside the Sweet 16 and the 16th position was left vacant.

References

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