Fuji Super Formula: Miyata leads Makino in Friday practice

Miyata, who goes into his second season at TOM’S, set the best time of 1m21.822s at the tail end of the 90-minute session with around a minute left on the clock, outpacing nearest rival Tadasuke Makino by 0.157 seconds.

That time was around ninth tenths off the pace set by Sacha Fenestraz in last month’s pre-season test at Fuji, albeit the test was held in much cooler conditions.

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Kondo Racing man Fenestraz was third-fastest on this occasion, joining Miyata and Dandelion driver Makino in breaching the 1m22s barrier at the end of the session but falling short of Miyata’s benchmark by 0.174s.

Hiroki Otsu made it two Dandelion cars in the top four, ahead of reigning champion Tomoki Nojiri (Team Mugen) in fifth place and Yuhi Sekiguchi (Impul).

Fenestraz’s Kondo teammate Kenta Yamashita was in a minority of drivers not to improve on his laptime in the closing stages of the session, returning to the pits early and ending up eighth behind Nojiri’s new Mugen teammate Ukyo Sasahara.

Toyota’s new FIA World Endurance Championship driver Ryo Hirakawa (Impul) and Toshiki Oyu (Nakajima Racing) rounded out a top 10 split by less than four tenths.

Inging’s Sho Tsuboi, who topped both days of the opening pre-season test at Suzuka and was second to Fenestraz in the Fuji test, was only 11th-fastest, 0.459s off the pace.

However, Tsuboi was one of several drivers to be caught out by a yellow flag at the very end of the session caused by a spin for Kazuya Oshima (Rookie Racing).

Top rookie was Team Goh’s newly-recruited Red Bull junior driver Ren Sato in 12th place, just ahead of teammate Atsushi Miyake.

Giuliano Alesi ended up 16th and 0.772s behind TOM’S teammate Miyata, albeit he was another driver not to improve on his best lap at the end of the session.

Fuji Super Formula - Practice results:

Pos.	No.	Driver	Team	Time	Gap
1	37	Ritomo Miyata	Kuo VANTELIN TEAM TOM’S	1'21.822
2	5	Tadasuke Makino	DOCOMO TEAM DANDELION	1'21.979	0.157
3	4	Sacha Fenestraz	Kondo Racing	1'21.996	0.174
4	6	Hiroki Otsu	DOCOMO TEAM DANDELION	1'22.077	0.255
5	1	Tomoki Nojiri	Team Mugen	1'22.136	0.314
6	19	Yuhi Sekiguchi	Team Impul	1'22.139	0.317
7	15	Ukyo Sasahara	Team Mugen	1'22.151	0.329
8	3	Kenta Yamashita	Kondo Racing	1'22.164	0.342
9	20	Ryo Hirakawa	Team Impul	1'22.194	0.372
10	65	Toshiki Oyu	TCS Nakajima Racing	1'22.201	0.379
11	38	Sho Tsuboi	P.MU/CERUMO･INGING	1'22.281	0.459
12	53	Ren Sato	Team Goh	1'22.440	0.618
13	55	Atsushi Miyake	Team Goh	1'22.450	0.628
14	64	Naoki Yamamoto	TCS Nakajima Racing	1'22.543	0.721
15	12	Nirei Fukuzumi	ThreeBond Drago CORSE	1'22.589	0.767
16	36	Giuliano Alesi	Kuo VANTELIN TEAM TOM’S	1'22.594	0.772
17	18	Yuji Kunimoto	KCMG	1'22.600	0.778
18	50	Nobuharu Matsushita	B-Max Racing Team	1'22.790	0.968
19	7	Kamui Kobayashi	KCMG	1'22.896	1.074
20	14	Kazuya Oshima	docomo business ROOKIE	1'22.904	1.082
21	39	Sena Sakaguchi	P.MU/CERUMO･INGING	1'22.997	1.175