Formula Drift Japan 2026 Rd.1 Fuji Results: Naoki Nakamura Wins

Naoki Nakamura (中村直樹, #999) won Formula Drift Japan 2026 Round 1 at Fuji International Speedway (Shizuoka) on Sunday 26 April 2026, beating Wataru Masuyama (益山航, #530) in the final; RYUMA (#131) was classified third and Kazumi Takahashi (高橋和己, #36) fourth. It was Nakamura’s first Formula Drift Japan start in a year, and it opened the season with him top of the table on 104 points, 19 clear of Masuyama on 85. This report was written up on 7 September 2026 from the official result sheet and report, and the sheet is still headed 暫定リザルト, provisional; every number in it was checked on the official pages on 7 Sep 2026.

Who won Round 1, and how?

The round runs on the Grand Prix course at Fuji International Speedway, not on Fuji Speedway Drift Park, the separate paid drift course on the same site that opened to individual drivers in June 2026 and which our Fuji Drift Park guide covers. The judged section starts near the Coca-Cola Corner and runs through the 100R and out of the hairpin. The weekend is branded FUJI XTREME DAYS with FORMULA DRIFT JAPAN and fills 24 to 26 April alongside FDJ2 Round 1, an FMX motocross showcase and 0-200 m drag races on the home straight. Forty-five drivers ran the opener, the series’ twelfth season.

Saturday 25 April was tansō (単走), solo judged runs, two per driver in dry conditions, scored out of 100: 35 for line, 35 for angle, 30 for style. Naoki Nakamura set the early mark at 83. Echo Gao (高璇, #919) answered with 82, Masuyama went ahead on 85, and RYUMA, running 40th, scored 88 in the GR86 he brought to the series this year. In the second runs Hokuto Matsuyama (松山北斗, #774) jumped from 76 to 88 to match him, but RYUMA repeated 88 and took the tie-break on the second score, 88 to 76. Masuyama held third on 85, Nakamura fourth on 83 after a 59, Gao fifth on 82. The cut fell at 69, where Sam Lucas (サムルーカス, #11) squeezed in 32nd; Akihiro Hanawa (塙彰拡, #870) and returnee Shuichi Mano (真野修一, #666) missed it by a point on 68. Fuji’s kerbing is why nobody reached 90: one or two wheels onto the zebra is a deduction, three is off course for no score. Reigning 2025 champion Kazumi Takahashi scored zero on his second run and kept the 81 from his first, which left him seventh.

Sunday 26 April was tsuisō (追走), the tandem chase battles that decide the round, two runs per pairing with lead and chase swapped. Nakamura’s route ran through Jake Jones (#947), Ken Gushi (#21), Gao in the Top 8 and RYUMA in the semi-final. Masuyama came the other way past Takuto Iguchi (井口卓人, #88), the Super Taikyu racer making his FDJ debut from 30th on the grid, then Daigo Saito (斎藤太吾, #87), Yusuke Kusaba (#77) and Takahashi. Both semi-finals went to a One More Time: Nakamura shadowed RYUMA’s lead run and then led one RYUMA could not sit on, while Masuyama restarted after a cone touch and still led without a mistake as Takahashi went for angle and dropped a wheel off. It was Masuyama’s first final in four years.

The final was tight both ways. Masuyama led first and Nakamura’s chase was late on one transition; Nakamura led the second at speed and cleanly, and Masuyama lost ground and erred himself. The official sheet lists outcomes, not the judges’ scores: 4 qualifying points plus 100 for the win gave Nakamura 104, and the report has him saying he badly wanted this one, with Riki Nakamura (中村龍輝, #1) second in the FDJ2 round the day before.

The bracket: which battles are worth rewatching?

The upset came a round earlier. Dr. Rubber (ラバー博士, #2), 31st on the grid in an S14, beat second qualifier Hokuto Matsuyama in the Top 32 after Matsuyama erred on his lead run and could not recover on the chase: out on the Sunday morning after tying for the best qualifying score. Gao’s Top 16 was settled off the road, MingMing (#100) hitting a gearbox problem after the first run and running out the five-minute competition time-out.

Who led the championship after Round 1?

Round 1 opened the season, so the championship table is the round’s own point ranking, taken from the official Round 1 ranking; it matches the Round.1 column of the standings page on formulad.jp, which by September 2026 carried Rounds 1 to 4. The scale is 100 battle points for the win, then 80, 64, 48, 32 and 16 for each earlier exit, plus 7 for qualifying P1, 6 for P2, 5 for P3, 4 down to eighth, 3 down to 16th, 2 down to 32nd and 1 for missing the cut.

Two names mattered later. Connor Xia (夏昌浩, #18) left Fuji 14th on 34 points and Jerry Zhu (朱元路, #111) missed the Top 32 altogether; both looked very different a month on. How the FDJ, FDJ2 and FDJ3 ladder works is in our Formula Drift Japan guide.

Where the season went next

Round 2 at Suzuka Twin Circuit (Mie) on 17 May went to Connor Xia over Yukio Fausto (#555), his first win in four years of starts and the championship lead on 140: our Rd.2 Suzuka Twin results. Round 3 at Ebisu Circuit West Course (Fukushima) on 13-14 June went to Koudai Sobagiri over Jake Jones: the Rd.3 Ebisu results. Round 4 at Sportsland SUGO on 12 July went to Takahashi over Masanori Kohashi, his first win of the year: the Rd.4 SUGO results. Round 5 at Gransnow Okuibuki (Shiga) on 6 September went to Takahashi again over Soshiro Nakamura (#7): the Rd.5 Okuibuki results.

That leaves one 2026 round you can still be at: the finale at Okayama International Circuit (Okayama), Friday 2 to Sunday 4 October 2026, with FDJ2 Rd.6 on the Friday and Saturday and Formula Drift Japan Rd.6 on the Saturday and Sunday. Advance tickets are ¥3,800, each valid for any one of the three days, ¥5,000 at the gate, and parking is ¥1,650 per car sold on the day. The advance channels are Seven Ticket, CN Playguide and Lawson Ticket, online or at the terminals inside 7-Eleven, FamilyMart and Lawson stores, all in Japanese; and where Fuji folded parking into the entry ticket, every public-transport route on the Okayama circuit’s access page ends with a bus from JR Okayama Station and then a taxi ordered in Japanese on race morning.

Every remaining 2026 date, FDJ and D1 alike, sits on the event calendar, rechecked against the official pages each month.