D1 NEXT Hokkaido 2026 Rd.2 Kamui Results: Yamaguchi Wins the Finale

Yamaguchi (山口銀平) won D1 NEXT Hokkaido Series Round 2 at Kamui Ski Links (Hokkaido) on Sunday 5 July 2026, beating third qualifier Okada (岡田雅斗) in the final after putting out top qualifier Shimooki (下沖憲矢) in the semi-final. The official 2026 D1 NEXT ranking gives him 25 points, Okada 21, Shimooki 18 and the other semi-finalist, Nakau (中右涼), 16. The D1 series table lists two Hokkaido rounds, 14 June and 5 July, and no third date, so the table after Round 2 is the final one: Naka (中翔大), runner-up at the opener, tops it on 33 points, 4 clear of Yamaguchi, without winning either round. This report was written up on 7 September 2026 from D1’s official post of 8 July, and every number in it was checked on the official pages on 7 Sep 2026.

D1 publishes D1 NEXT results in Japanese only and the Kamui sheet carries no car numbers, so the readings here, Ginpei Yamaguchi, Masato Okada, Kenya Shimooki, Ryo Nakau and Shota Naka, are ours and unconfirmed by the organiser; 下沖, 中右 and 中 in particular can be read more than one way, which is why the kanji sits beside every name.

Who won Round 2, and how?

D1 NEXT is the open-entry regional tier of the D1 ladder, single-day events run by local organisers; our D1 NEXT explainer covers the format, the fees and the one-day licence. The Hokkaido series is the shortest of the six: two Sundays run by the Hokkaido Drift Challenge committee (北海道ドリフトチャレンジ実行委員会), the first at New Chitose Motorland on 14 June, the second on the summer car park of Kamui Ski Links, a ski resort whose tarmac becomes the course once the snow has gone. The judges were Asano and Hatanaka (浅野潤一・畑中夢斗).

Solo runs first: tansō (単走), two scored runs per driver, ranked on the better one with the second as tie-break. Shimooki and Hirasawa (平澤蓮士) both ran 187.5; Shimooki’s 182.5 backup against Hirasawa’s 156 gave him P1. Okada was third on 185.6, Yamaguchi fourth on 185.5 with a 97 backup, so through on one run, and Naka sixth on 184.5. Twenty-eight drivers appear on the sheet, two of them with no score; the top 16 went through, the cut fell at 177.5 with Sato (佐藤泰斗), and Niwa (丹羽史昌) missed it by a single point on 176.5. Round 1 winner Tanifuji (谷藤克哉) is not on the sheet at all.

Then the tsuisō (追走), the tandem chase battles that decide the round. Yamaguchi beat 13th qualifier Hiraide (平出勇太), fifth qualifier Sawaya (澤谷卓), Shimooki in the semi-final and Okada in the final; Okada came through Mizuguchi (水口優雅), then Naka, who would top the series table, then Nakau. The upset was Nakau: 15th in qualifying on 179, he put out second qualifier Hirasawa and then seventh qualifier Takahashi (高橋純希) to reach the semi-final, and the 16 points lifted him to third in the series. The official graphic records who won each pairing and the podium order, not the judges’ scores, so we will not invent them; it shows no third-place battle, and lists Shimooki third and Nakau fourth in line with their points.

The bracket: who beat whom?

The seeding is the standard 16-car ladder, and the higher seed won every Top 16 pairing except Nakau over Hirasawa. Every loser’s points in the official ranking match the stage and the qualifying order above, which is how we checked our reading of the graphic.

How did the Hokkaido Series table finish?

Read off the official table, the scale is 25 for the win, 21, 18 and 16 for the next three, 13 down to 10 for the four beaten in the Top 8 and 8 down to 1 for the eight beaten in the Top 16, ordered by qualifying position where drivers fell at the same stage. Shimooki and Tanifuji tie on 25; the official table lists Shimooki fifth and Tanifuji sixth. One quirk if you read the original: Kanbayashi appears twice, as 上林雅英 with 10 points from Kamui in 14th and as 上林 雅英, with a space, with 1 point from Chitose in 22nd; combined he would be on 11. The opener at New Chitose Motorland on 14 June went to Tanifuji over Naka in the final, with Hirasawa third, and that day has its own Round 1 report.

Where the season went next

The Hokkaido series was done that Sunday, two rounds and out. The next D1 NEXT round you can still get to is Central Rd.3 at Mobara Twin Circuit (Chiba) on Sunday 13 September 2026: one day on the forward layout, ¥19,800 to enter plus ¥2,200 on the day for the provisional-licence briefing if you hold no D1 licence, entries closing 10 September, and ¥1,000 at the gate plus ¥1,000 parking per car if you come to watch. It is the easiest D1 NEXT round in the country to reach without a car; our Mobara guide has the JR line from Tokyo Station and the bus from Mobara Station.

The entry is the wall. Mobara’s process runs in Japanese from start to finish: a web form, an entry sheet returned by fax or email, a bank transfer within three days of the web entry, and no cancellation once the form is in.

Every remaining 2026 D1 NEXT date, Owara on 20 September, Nikko on 17 October and Mobara again on 8 November among them, sits on the event calendar, rechecked against the official series table each month.