Teams and drivers
As the championship is a spec series, all teams compete with an identical Dallara 324 chassis with a Toyota GR Yaris three cylinder 1.6-litre turbo engine. All teams compete with tyres supplied by Kumho Tire.
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Team changes
B-Max Racing Team stopped running its No. 30 car under the Team Dragon guise, instead entering it as a normal B-Max Racing Team entry.
LM corsa made their full-season debut in the series after entering two rounds in 2024. [4]
Delightworks Racing, a new team established by gaming company DELiGHTWORKS in 2024, where they competed in the last round of Formula Regional Japan, joined the series. [5] [2] The team took over Toda Racing's entry as that team, a series mainstay ever since 1988, when the series was called Japanese Formula 3, did not continue their entry into 2025. [6]
Albirex Racing Team did not return to the championship after entering the final two rounds of the 2024 season. [6]
Driver changes
Reigning Teams' Champion TOM'S saw Jin Nakamura and Seita Nonaka leave the series as Nakamura moved to Formula Regional Europe with R-ace GP and Nonaka focused on his continued Super GT GT300 efforts with Saitama Green Brave. The team signed 2023 Eurocup-3 champion Esteban Masson, who came 27th in the WEC's LMGT3 class with Akkodis ASP in 2024, and Yuki Sano, who finished fourth in the 2024 F4 Japanese Championship driving for the TGR-DC Racing School. [3] [7]
B-Max Racing Team saw reigning Drivers' Champion Syun Koide graduate to the team's Super Formula outfit, while Rin Arakawa joined Tomei Sports in Super GT GT300 and Makoto Fujiwara left the series. [8] [9] B-Max promoted reigning 2024 F4 Japanese champion Yuto Nomura from its outfit in that championship. [8] The team also signed Kazuhisa Urabe, who steps up from Japanese F4 after finishing 11th in 2024 with TGR-DC Racing School. Zachary David completed the team's lineup, debuting in SFL alongside a sophomore FRECA campaign with CL Motorsport after finishing his rookie campaign there 13th driving for R-ace GP. [1] [8]
Reigning Porsche Carrera Cup Japan champion Reimei Ito made his full-season debut with LM corsa after entering two rounds with the team in 2024 and finishing the season in ninth. [4] [2]
New team Delightworks Racing contracted two former HFDP drivers for their SFL debut. They signed Souta Arao, who finished the 2024 season in seventh driving for Toda Racing, and 2022 F4 Japanese runner-up Yusuke Mitsui, who would make his rookie debut in the series after spent 2024 racing in Super Taikyu ST-2 with Team Spoon and Super GT - GT300 with Team UpGarage. [5] [2]
Tsubasa Iriyama left the series along with Albirex Racing Team. [6]
Mid-season
Two drivers withdrew shortly ahead of the opening round: JMS Racing Team's Nobuhiro Imada suffered a hand injury ahead of the event and was replaced by Tosei Moriyama, who finished fifth in both Japanese F4 and the FIA Motorsport Games Formula 4 Cup. [2] TOM'S driver Esteban Masson was also unable to race due to an injury and was initially set to be replaced by Seita Nonaka, who would return to the No. 38 car he drove to third in the standings in 2024. [10] However, when Team Impul's Super Formula driver Oliver Rasmussen sustained an injury during free practice, Nonaka was called up to replace him and TOM'S opted against fielding the No. 36 car. [11] [12]
Souta Arao parted ways with Delightworks Racing after round one. [13] Former Super GT GT300 driver Yugo Iwasawa replaced him for rounds two and three, making his debut in the series, before the team scaled back to a single entry for Mitsui for round four. [14] [15]
Former Super GT GT300 driver Takuya Otaki was to make his Super Formula Lights debut in round five, replacing Dragon in the No. 30 B-Max Racing Team car, but he withdrew shortly before the weekend, with Dragon returning to his entry. [16]
