Who is Juju Noda? Japan’s Latest Rising Star

Japan has produced a number of exciting talents and memorable characters over the years when it comes to motorsport. Takuma Sato, Kamui Kobayashi, Yui Tsunoda, Miki Koyama, Ayumu Iwaasa and the infamous Taki Inoue are just some of the names on that lengthy list. Now though, there’s another name that deserves to be included in ones to watch coming out of Japan – Juju Noda.

Born in 2006, motorsport and racing have always been embedded in Juj’s DNA. Starting karting when she was just three years old, she wanted to follow in the footsteps of her father, former Formula 1 driver Hideki Noda, and make it into the top tier of motor racing.

“My father was a Formula 1 driver so I used to go and watch my father race when I was little and I thought it was very cool! When I was three years old, my father gave me a racing kart and it was really fun! I liked taking control of the kart myself so that’s how I ended up driving.” – Juju Noda

Juju is right of course, it doesn’t get much cooler than Formula 1. Since she started racing, she’s never really stopped breaking records either and has continually pushed herself out of her comfort zone in the aid of improving her ability behind the wheel. From karting, she moved into Formula 4 in Japan and then made the big switch to go racing in Europe, debuting in the Danish Formula 4 Championship. Naturally, neither English nor Dutch are her first language so there was an extra challenge for her that came with this and the odds to succeed were already mathematically stacked against her as she was the only woman competing in the series. What’s more, with the exception of Tore Sten Nielsen, she was also the only non Danish driver to race in the Championship in 2020.

“The Danish Formula 4 Championship was my first experience in Europe so I didn’t know how much I was capable of and it was quite a big change for me.”

As you’ll come to learn though, these challenges are not ones to keep Juju from going after what she wants and she hit the ground running immediately in the Danish F4 Championship as she won her very first race at the FDM Jyllands-Ringen Circuit. From there, she would finish in the top ten in six of the next eight races, including a third and a second place finish at Padborg Park. Come the end of 2020, Juju was P6 in the Driver’s Standings with 85 points to her name, almost 20 points clear of P7.

“That experience of winning gave me a lot of confidence and I was really happy with the result! It’s my favorite racing memory so far! As I said earlier, I didn’t know how much I’d be able to do or how much I was capable of, so winning that first race was a real boost for me, especially as it was my first time racing in Europe. It was still challenging after that because there was perhaps a bit of an expectation on me after that and the other teams on the grid fought me harder than they might have done had I not won. So it was even more challenging in some ways to race against everyone else because they hadn’t been expecting me to win the first race! It was good to win that first race but then more was expected of me so the pressure got higher.”

As Juju spoke about above, her first win didn’t exactly make things easier for her and it continued to be an uphill battle for her after this as those around her fought her harder than they otherwise might have. But finishing P6 overall with three podiums that includes a win to her name is not something to be undervalues and just goes to show the level of talent that was already emerging at this time.

Juju raced in the Danish F4 Championship again in 2021, with a further five podiums to her name (although another race win eluded her) and she finished the year in P7 with 149 points to her name, just four points away from P5 in the standings.

Following this, she gained some valuable experience from a season in W Series in 2022 as well as a few rounds of the F4 US Championship, the Drexler Automotive Formula 3 Cup and the F2000 Italian Formula Trophy. While there wasn’t a lot to write home about after all of these, each one still reinforced and developed Juju as a driver and helped her refine her skills. Every driver goes through challenging times in their career and Juju is no different.

For 2023 then, Juju’s been racing in the Drexler Automotive Formula 3 Cup again, as well as the Euroformula Open Championship. So far, Juju sits in P3 in the standings in the former, already with six podiums to her name which includes three wins at Mugello and Spa respectively with her lowest finish of the season being a P4 at Imola – not a bad record at all.

“It’s my new challenge and I’m really enjoying the racing and I could win the race in Mugello! It’s been a good experience so far and I’m really satisfied with the results. The Euroformula Open is also another new challenge for me and my team but in every session and every race, I can learn a lot and figure out how to apply all that knowledge next time I’m out on track. I think it’s a very good experience for me.”

By comparison, her time in the Euroformula Championship has been more challenging with just one podium so far (in Hungary) but hasn’t once yet finished outside of the top ten. There are still three and five rounds left of each Championship respectively at a variety of tracks that includes Hockenheim, Le Castellet and a return to Mugello. If Juju’s performances so far this year are anything to go by, it would be foolish to count her out of a potential title bid in the Drexler Automotive Formula 3 Cup at the very least. As is often the case with these Championships, anything can truly happen and it isn’t over until it’s over. The cars too are different from what she’d driven before but they seem to be much more to her liking, and it shows.

“I like these cars. They have more downforce than what I’m used to and drove last year. I can go faster through the corners and I can be more competitive on the circuits. But of course that means it demands more from me physically and in terms of driving skill so it’s a good challenge.”

We’ve seen countless times in motosport what can happen when a talented driver gets the machinery they need to really demonstrate their skill. There will undoubtedly have been those that only learned about Juju last year because of the high profile nature of W Series and didn’t think there was anything really to get excited about, given her results there. But as can clearly be seen from what she’s already been able to accomplish this year, doubting Juju’s abilities behind the wheel would be a mistake – and as shown above, it’s a lesson some of her competitors have already had to learn the hard way. Difficult patches come and go and it’s what the drivers do with them and how they apply the hardships they’ve been through that shows us the content of their character.

It’s also worth noting that while winning is at the forefront of every racing driver’s mind, Juju included, there’s more to it than just that for the Japanese driver. Clean, hard racing is what she wants on her path to victory and to really earn the results she gets.

“I know I want to win this series, the EuroFormula Open because I’m with an experienced team. If I can get more podiums, it will be very very good. But I also like to be able to compete with the other drivers on the track, even if I don’t end up on the podium afterwards because it’s a good race experience and it’s more fun!”

For someone so young, there’s a lot of maturity in her approach to her racing career. This is something we’ve been seeing a lot more in recent years with younger drivers but it comes across as that little bit more impressive when it’s coming from someone who grew up so far from Europe without English as their first language. It’s not always something that is taken into consideration but it does show that there’s no one definitive way of doing something and that with the right support network around you (particularly when you’ve got a family member who’s been on their own motorsport journey), there aren’t any limits on what these drivers can achieve if they want it badly enough.

As for non racing related topics of conversation (because nobody gets through an interview with yours truly without a little random silliness at the end), when asked what’s one food dish that you’d love to cook and if she could turn into any animal as much as you wanted, what would she choose and why, this is what she had to say:

“I like to cook and bake desserts. So cake, cookies, I love doing it.”

“That’s a good question! I think I’d choose some kind of bird because I’d love to be able to fly!”

There are still three and five rounds remaining this season in the series in which Juju is racing this year set out above and it’ll be fascinating to see what she can do in each of those. What will be more fascinating still will be what happens afterwards in 2024. F1 Academy was set up to help young female talent get into Formula 3 and beyond but as a former W Series driver, Juju’s already gone down that route and had to pivot as a result. Perhaps her performances here will make a few Formula 3 teams look at her instead and consider her for a seat next year. It would seem foolish to not at least consider her for this or a possible campaign in GB3.

One thing that is for certain is that Japan is not short of some remarkable talent when it comes to motorsport – and Juju Noda is just the latest individual to prove that. Keep an eye out for her.

Author: Thiemo Albers-Daly