D1 NEXT Central 2026 Rd.4 Nikko Results: Tsuyoshi Nakagawa Wins

Tsuyoshi Nakagawa (中川剛志, #1) won D1 NEXT Central Series 2026 Round 4 at Nikko Circuit (Tochigi) on Saturday 17 October 2026, beating Ren Asami (浅見廉, #4) in the final after topping solo qualifying on 98.35. D1’s official ranking still stops at Round 3, where Nakagawa leads on 43 points from Yoshinobu Shinbo and Naoki Miyazaki on 36 each. We checked every figure here on D1’s official pages on 20 Oct 2026.

Who won Round 4, and how?

Nikko hosted the Central series for the second time this year, after the opener in March. The track was dry, D1’s sheet names two judges (藤野秀之 and 目桑宏次郎), and the organiser was F-Techcom (エフテックコム). If this tier is new to you, our D1 NEXT explainer shows where it sits under D1 Lights and D1 Grand Prix.

The day ran in three stages. First came solo qualifying (tansō, 単走, judged single runs). D1 ranked 56 drivers, and the top 29 moved on. Nakagawa topped it on 98.35. Suzuki (鈴木勉, #14, AE86 Trueno) was second on 98.15 and Kota Tsuboi (坪井己汰, #52, S15) third on 98.00.

Then a solo final reshuffled the 29. Suzuki won it on 98.35, with Tsuboi second on 97.85. Nakagawa only placed seventh on 97.50. The top 16 went into the chase bracket (tsuiso, 追走, two-car tandem battles).

Seventh seed meant a harder road, and Nakagawa took it. He beat Mizuki Kudo (工藤瑞輝, #35), then Tsuboi, then Miyazaki in the semi-final. In the final he met Asami, another S15, who had knocked out top seed Suzuki in the Best 8. Nakagawa won it.

The bracket: which battles decided it?

Seeds below are positions in the solo final, as printed on D1’s tournament chart. Spellings are our reading of the kanji, except Lucas McCulloch, whose name D1 prints in Latin letters.

Lower seeds had a big day. Three of the eight Best 16 battles went to the lower seed, and Yagi went from 12th to the semi-final. Miyazaki beat the sixth and third seeds back to back. If footage surfaces, Asami against Suzuki is the one to look for: the solo final’s top scorer went out in his second battle.

D1’s chart shows no battle for third place, and the post gives no final classification. The podium photo on D1’s report shows three drivers, but the post does not name the third. So third place stays TBC here until D1’s ranking adds Round 4.

Championship standings after Round 4

D1’s official ranking page listed the Central series through Round 3 only when we checked on 20 October 2026. This is the official top eight as published.

D1’s Round 4 post does not print points. D1 printed a scale for Round 3: 25 for a win, 21 for second, then 18, 16 and down to 1 for 16th. If Round 4 uses the same scale, adding it to the official table gives the totals below. This is our arithmetic, not an official standing.

Shinbo, Komuro and Shirakawa are not on D1’s Round 4 sheets. We do not know D1’s tiebreak or whether every round counts, so wait for the official table before calling a leader.

What the drivers said

Tsuboi won the separate D1 NEXT Fuji series opener in September, as our Fuji Rd.1 report covers, and he raced Nikko too. He went out in the Best 8 against the eventual winner, and posted why the same evening.

With 56 cars ranked, most of the field goes home after qualifying. This entrant was 41st.

Next round: Mobara on 8 November

The Central season ends at Mobara Twin Circuit (Chiba) on Sunday 8 November 2026, with Round 5 on the reverse layout. Round 3 there ran the forward way, as our Rd.3 Mobara report explains. The March Nikko round is in our Rd.1 Nikko report, and the venue itself is in our Nikko Circuit guide.

Mobara is about 45 minutes from Tokyo Station by JR to Mobara Station, then 15 to 20 minutes by bus or taxi, and our Mobara Twin Circuit guide lists a ¥500 weekend gate fee. The stuck part for a visitor is everything around the gate. The circuit’s D1 NEXT page and day schedule are in Japanese, and the last stretch from the station is a local bus or a taxi you arrange yourself.

The date is on our drift event calendar. Organisers note that dates can change.