Tokumaru’s racing etiquette is really amateurish, cutting and weaving in front of others and joining the track in a unsafe manner. Its really gonna screw him if he keeps this up. Not to mention, the entire grudge against Haru is snobbish. Its the lapping car’s responsibility to navigate safely when lapping back-markers. I understand the frustrations of being relegated to wing-man driver and occasionally feel like team doesn’t support you unfairly, but he isn’t helping himself with that attitude.

Another great episode! If all the races are like this, I’ll be one happy camper. I hope they talk about locking up the tires and the repercussions of it in a later episode since Tokumaru kept doing it. I’m worried a viewer without any motorsports knowledge might be confused why the car seemed to be drifting at some points in turns after lockups. It’s a little exaggerated, but that’s fine.

And does Japanese F4 require any fuel saving? If not, the depiction of Haruka slipstreaming Tokumaru is a little off since there’s no reason to just sit there when passing if you aren’t trying to save fuel. It should have shown him getting sucked in and closing the gap, then darting out when he gets close enough. But whatever, that’s a minor gripe.

I’m loving the accurate depictions of the tracks as well. I race some of these tracks on iRacing, so it was cool to see Twin Ring Motegi in this episode and know where on track they were.

It’s really well made. The animation is really nice as well and good attention to details.