FDJ3 2026 Rd.1 Fuji Results: Peres Wins Qualifying and the Final

Ricky Peres (リッキー ぺレス, #70) won FDJ3 2026 Round 1 at Fuji Speedway Drift Park (Shizuoka) on Wednesday 29 April 2026, beating Ryu Funabashi (船橋竜, #64) in the final after topping the morning’s qualifying on 86 points. Yuto Saito (齋藤優斗, #67) was classified third on 63 points and Souta Notsu (野津颯太, #80) fourth on 62. That double is worth the maximum 106 points, and it left Peres leading the championship by 24. This report was written up on 7 September 2026 from the official result sheet and report, which is still headed 暫定リザルト, provisional, and every number here was checked on the official pages on 7 Sep 2026.

Who won Round 1, and how?

FDJ3 is the entry tier of Formula Drift Japan, in its fourth season since 2023 and run on a single Yokohama control tyre; this round was titled YOKOHAMA Presents 2026 FDJ3 Round.1, with 59 drivers signed on for the year. The venue is not the Grand Prix circuit. Fuji Speedway Drift Park is a separate pad inside the same complex, renamed for 2026 from the Multi-Purpose Driving Course, and its layout can be reconfigured: the series used a course never run before, four outer zones on the judged corner with a touch-and-go between the third and the fourth. Our Fuji Speedway Drift Park guide covers getting your own car onto it.

The morning was tansō (単走), solo judged runs, two per driver, ranked on the better score. Fifty cars turned up, three retired before qualifying and 47 ran: 41 set a score and six recorded nothing at all, running wide costing an instant zero. Peres took the top spot with the last run of the session, an 86 backed by a 76. SEIKA (#19) was second on 85, Issa Minakawa (皆川一茶, #135) third on 84, Atsushi Tarumi (樽見淳, #222) fourth on 83, Saito fifth on 82. The cut fell at 73, which Yoshimi Mori (森修, #72) made in sixteenth and Ryosuke Kinoshita (#59) missed on the same score.

The afternoon was tsuisō (追走), tandem chase battles run twice with lead and chase swapped, through rounds the series calls the Great 8 and the Final 4. Peres’s JZX100 beat Mori, Douglas Ozaki (尾崎ドグラス, #107), Saito and then Funabashi, whose final the official report describes as small on every zone chasing and two zones missed leading. In the comment published with the report Peres said machine trouble had made it a hard day and thanked his team; it was his second FDJ3 win.

The bracket: which battles are worth rewatching?

Six of the fifteen battles went to the lower qualifier, four of them in the Top 16. Second, third and fourth in qualifying were gone before the semi-finals: Minakawa to fourteenth qualifier Otgonbaatar Zoliargal (オトゴンバートル ゾルジャラガル, #98), Tarumi to thirteenth qualifier Muneo Miyachi (宮地むねお, #670), then SEIKA to Notsu. Two Top 16 battles needed a One More Time rerun, Miyachi over Tarumi and Saito over Ryo Kato (加藤諒, #345).

The other story was the 16-year-old. Notsu was on debut, qualified tenth on 77 and beat seventh qualifier Hiromu Kagayama (加々山大夢, #35) and then SEIKA before Funabashi stopped him one battle short of the final.

Who led the FDJ3 championship after Round 1?

This was the opening round, so the championship table is the round’s own points, from the official Round 1 column on the formulad.jp standings page. The scale is 100 battle points for the win, 80 for the runner-up, 60 for a losing semi-finalist, 40 for a Top 8 exit and 20 for a Top 16 exit, plus 6 for qualifying P1 sliding to 2 for sixteenth and 1 for missing the cut, which is what 31 drivers took home. Twelve of the 59 are marked リタイヤ, retired, with no score at all. Where FDJ3 sits under FDJ2 and the top class is in our Formula Drift Japan guide.

Where the season went next

Peres’s lead lasted exactly one round. At Suzuka Twin Circuit on 31 May he qualified 29th, missed the cut and scored a single point, while Notsu won from 16th and took the championship, as our Rd.2 report sets out. At Ebisu Circuit West Course on 5 July, Minato Oike (#371) won from ninth and Notsu kept the lead despite a Top 16 exit, in our Rd.3 report.

The round to circle is Rd.5, back on this same pad on Sunday 18 October 2026, another one-day round. As of 7 September 2026 its ticket line still reads Soon, so budget for what Rd.1 charged: ¥1,200 adult admission at the Fuji Speedway gate plus ¥2,000 in cash at the Drift Park entrance, parking free, nothing sold in advance. The Japanese entry page still uses the old Multi-Purpose Driving Course name. Rd.4 at Okuibuki Motorpark (Shiga) on 20 September asks ¥3,000 plus ¥1,500 per car at the gate, and the finale, Rd.6 at Tsukuruma Circuit Nasu (Tochigi) on 1 November, had no published spectator price on 7 September 2026.

Driving in it is not on the table: FDJ3 sells a season entry, ¥264,000 including tax for all six rounds, rather than a per-round price, and 2026 applications closed in February. A normal running day on the pad is its own wall — our venue guide found the compulsory licence lecture is delivered in Japanese only, with Fuji asking you to bring your own interpreter, and day tickets go on web sale two weeks before the date and no earlier.

Every FDJ3, FDJ2 and Formula Drift Japan date left in 2026 sits on the event calendar, rechecked against formulad.jp each month.