The lineage of Formula Nippon stretches back to the All-Japan Formula 2000 Championship, established by the JAF in 1973 as Japan's first top-level formula racing series. That series transformed into the All-Japan Formula Two Championship in 1978 and then into the All-Japan Formula 3000 Championship in 1987, with the F3000 era officially beginning in 1988. For much of this period, Japan's top formula closely tracked its European equivalents in technical regulation.
The F3000 era attracted considerable talent. Future Formula One race winners Jean Alesi, Johnny Herbert, Eddie Irvine, and Heinz-Harald Frentzen competed in Japan during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Most notably, future seven-time World Champion Michael Schumacher made a one-off appearance at Sportsland Sugo in 1991. Japanese champions of the period included Aguri Suzuki (1988) and Ukyo Katayama (1991), both of whom went on to Formula One careers.
When the International Formula 3000 series went spec in 1996 to control costs, JRP chose to continue with the previous open F3000 regulations rather than follow suit. The series adopted the Formula Nippon name from 1996 under JRP's management, marking a more independent direction for Japanese top-formula racing.
Pedro de la Rosa won both the Formula Nippon and All-Japan GT Championship GT500 titles in 1997, becoming the first driver to achieve this "double champion" feat in Japan. Satoshi Motoyama and Richard Lyons would replicate the achievement in 2003 and 2004 respectively, underscoring how Formula Nippon drivers routinely competed across Japan's major professional categories simultaneously.
Formula Nippon continued to serve as a pathway into Formula One for ambitious drivers. Ralf Schumacher, Shinji Nakano, Toranosuke Takagi, and Ralph Firman all used Japanese top formula as a springboard to F1 careers. However, by the late 2000s, the series' direct connection to the Formula One pathway had weakened, and the global financial crisis following the Lehman Brothers collapse in 2008 hit the grid hard — entries fell from 20 cars in 2008 to just 13 in 2009.
Until 2002, Formula Nippon was an open formula: chassis came from Lola, Reynard, and G-Force, while engines were supplied by Mugen-Honda alongside Cosworth and Judd. Bridgestone became the sole tyre supplier in 1997, and Mugen-Honda became the sole engine supplier from 1998, though open engine tuning remained permitted. Following Reynard's bankruptcy and G-Force's withdrawal, the Lola B03/51 became the spec chassis from 2003.
A sweeping regulatory revision came in 2006 with the introduction of the Lola FN06 chassis and new 3.0-litre V8 engines from Toyota and Honda, derived from the same blocks those manufacturers used in the 2005 IndyCar Series. Swift Engineering's Swift FN09 chassis replaced the Lola in 2009, alongside a new 3.4-litre V8 shared with the GT500 class of Super GT and a "push-to-pass" overtaking system that persists to the present day.
On August 5, 2012, JRP announced that the series would be renamed Super Formula beginning with the 2013 season, expressing a desire to establish the championship on equal footing with Formula One and IndyCar as the undisputed top formula series in Asia. The Formula Nippon name was retired after the 2012 season, but the sporting infrastructure, circuits, and competitive culture it had built over seventeen years formed the direct foundation of what Super Formula became.
Formula Nippon defined the modern era of Japanese top-formula racing, establishing the JRP management structure, the network of major circuits — Suzuka, Fuji Speedway, Mobility Resort Motegi, Sportsland Sugo — and the relationship between factory driver contracts and dual-programme racing in Super GT that remain the series' hallmarks today. Its roll of champions and graduates to Formula One left a lasting mark on international motorsport, and the series' willingness to maintain an open, high-downforce formula at a time when international alternatives were going spec gave it a distinctive character that made it genuinely competitive at a global level.