Formula Drift Japan 2026 Rd.2 Suzuka Twin Results: Connor Xia Wins

Connor Xia (夏昌浩, #18) won Formula Drift Japan 2026 Round 2 at Suzuka Twin Circuit (Mie) on Sunday 17 May 2026, beating Yukio Fausto (ユキオ ファウスト, #555) in the final; Masanori Kohashi (小橋正典, #4) was classified third and MingMing (ミンミン, #100) fourth. It was Xia’s first win in four years of Formula Drift Japan starts, and it put him top of the championship on 140 points, 3 clear of Wataru Masuyama (益山航, #530) on 137, our sum of the official per-round points. 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 2, and how?

Suzuka Twin Circuit is the small Mie venue with two layouts, and the drift-oriented D Course is the one the series uses; outside race weekends that course sells its own paid drift running, which our Suzuka Twin Circuit guide covers. The judged run goes clockwise from the home straight into Turn 1. The series’ own report describes outer zones through the first three sections, with zones 2 and 3 worth 10 points each, a touch-and-go box made smaller than in 2025, a 5-point outer zone at zone 4 and deductions for touching the zebra kerbing: a layout where a clean 100 essentially never happens.

Saturday 16 May was tansō (単走), solo judged runs, two per driver, ranked on the better score, run in reverse championship order. Jerry Zhu (朱元路, #111), who had failed to qualify at Fuji, jumped from 74 in the first run to 91 in the second and took P1 in his E92. Xia was second on 89, Naoki Nakamura (中村直樹, #999) third on 88 after scoring zero in his first attempt, and Kohashi fourth on 86. The Top 32 cut fell at 75, with Yukio Matsui (松井有紀夫, #8), Akihiro Hanawa (塙彰拡, #870) and Shintaro Nakamura (中村進太郎, #888) all making it on that score, and the reigning 2025 series champion Kazumi Takahashi (高橋和己, #36) missing out by a single point on 74 in 33rd.

Sunday 17 May was tsuisō (追走), the tandem chase battles that decide the round, two runs per pairing with lead and chase swapped. The Top 32 took out the Fuji winner: Naoki Nakamura lost to Matsui, who had qualified 30th, and ninth-qualifier Daigo Saito (斎藤太吾, #87) lost to 24th-placed Harry Yoza (与座ハリー, #43). Xia’s route ran through Hanawa, then Ken Gushi (#21), then sixth-qualifier Kiyofumi Hamada (濵田清文, #9) in the Top 8, then MingMing in the semi-final. Fausto came through the other half from 16th on the grid, past Echo Gao (高璇, #919), top qualifier Zhu, Masuyama and Kohashi.

Both semi-finals ended with a car stopping: the official report has Kohashi’s engine failing while chasing Fausto on the second run, and MingMing’s car stopping against Xia on the second run, taking out both Team Orange entries. The final turned on a mistake. Chasing Xia in the first run, Fausto ran off course at zone 4, called the five-minute competition time-out and returned with the suspension patched up for a committed second run that was not enough. The official sheet lists outcomes, not the judges’ scores, so we will not invent them: 6 qualifying points plus 100 for the win gave Xia 106 for the weekend.

The bracket: which battles are worth rewatching?

Two are worth the rewatch on their own. Kohashi against Toshiki Oyu (大湯都史樹, #10), the racing driver who skipped Fuji and qualified 20th here, went to two One More Times before the judges split it on the third pairing. Matsui’s run from 30th on the grid past Naoki Nakamura and then RYUMA was worth 50 points and eighth place. Kohashi and MingMing finished level on 68, and the official bracket names Kohashi third.

Who led the championship after Round 2?

The official standings page on formulad.jp now runs through Round 4, so the totals below are our sum of the official Round 1 and Round 2 columns on that page, not a figure printed for Round 2; they match the points quoted in the series’ own Round 2 report of 25 May 2026. The scale, read off the result sheet, 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 rounds, two winners, eight drivers inside 37 points. Naoki Nakamura had won the opener at Fuji and left Mie third; Takahashi, champion in 2025, was 69 points behind after failing to qualify. How the FDJ, FDJ2 and FDJ3 ladder works is in our Formula Drift Japan guide.

Where the season went next

Round 3 at Ebisu Circuit West Course (Fukushima) on 13–14 June went to Koudai Sobagiri (#31) over Jake Jones (#947), with Xia third from qualifying P1, stretching his lead from 3 points to 22: our Rd.3 Ebisu results. At Round 4, Sportsland SUGO on 12 July, Takahashi beat Kohashi for his first win of the year while Xia went out in the Top 32 and kept the lead by a single point: 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, FDJ2 Rd.6 on Friday–Saturday and Formula Drift Japan Rd.6 on Saturday–Sunday. Advance tickets are ¥3,800, each a single-day pass 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; without a car, every public-transport route on the 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.