Suzuka Super Formula: Nojiri leads Miyata in practice

Team Mugen driver Nojiri set a best lap of 1m38.895s in the closing moments of Friday afternoon's 90-minute session, which was the only running ahead of qualifying for the first of two races at Suzuka on Saturday morning.

That was enough for Nojiri, who has to make up a 10-point deficit to TOM'S man Miyata, to top the session by 0.230 seconds amid a flurry of late improvements on new tyres late on.

Just prior to the session, Nojiri had spoken of the desire to use Friday's running to put pressure on his title rivals Miyata and Liam Lawson, as he aims to earn a historic third consecutive title this weekend.

"If you're fast in practice, you can apply pressure on your rivals, and if you have some margin, you don't have to show your hand to them. These kinds of tactics are important in a short race week."

Behind Miyata, Inging's Sho Tsuboi was third-fastest, 0.287s off the pace, while Lawson was fourth, just a further seven thousandths back as he reacclimatised to Super Formula machinery following his five-race Formula 1 spell for AlphaTauri.

Rookie Kakunoshin Ota was an impressive fifth for Dandelion Racing ahead of Kondo Racing's Kenta Yamashita and the second Inging car of Sena Sakaguchi.

Hiroki Otsu, standing in for an injured Naoki Yamamoto this weekend, was the lead Nakajima Racing car in eighth, one place ahead of his team-mate Ren Sato.

TGM Grand Prix newcomer Riki Okusa, who was announced only on Wednesday as Toshiki Oyu's replacement for the Suzuka weekend, was a creditable 17th-fastest in his first Super Formula outing, 1.121s off the pace.

 

That put the youngster ahead of several other runners, including team-mate Cem Bolukbasi, who was 20th in the sister TGM car.

The session was interrupted early on by two red flag periods. The first followed a high-speed crash for Kazuto Kotaka at Turn 2, with the Kondo driver not re-appearing for the rest of the session. The second stoppage was caused by debris.

Qualifying for the penultimate round of the Super Formula season takes place at 9.30am local time on Saturday, with the 31-lap race following later in the day at 2.30pm.

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Suzuka Super Formula - practice results:

Main Information Additional Data Driver Info

     

Driver Info			Main Information
Cla	Driver	#		Laps	Time	Interval	km/h
1	T. Nojiri Team Mugen	1		22	1'38.895		211.387
2	R. Miyata Vantelin Team TOM'S	37		21	+0.230 1'39.125	0.230	210.897
3	S. Tsuboi P.MU/CERUMO･INGING	38		21	+0.287 1'39.182	0.057	210.776
4	L. Lawson Team Mugen	15		24	+0.294 1'39.189	0.007	210.761
5	K. Ohta Dandelion Racing	6		28	+0.328 1'39.223	0.034	210.689
6	K. Yamashita Kondo Racing	3		26	+0.404 1'39.299	0.076	210.527
7	S. Sakaguchi P.MU/CERUMO･INGING	39		21	+0.418 1'39.313	0.014	210.498
8	H. Otsu TCS Nakajima Racing	64		25	+0.523 1'39.418	0.105	210.275
9	R. Sato TCS Nakajima Racing	65		27	+0.534 1'39.429	0.011	210.252
10	T. Makino Dandelion Racing	5		22	+0.539 1'39.434	0.005	210.241
11	N. Fukuzumi ThreeBond Racing	12		21	+0.541 1'39.436	0.002	210.237
12	N. Matsushita B-Max Racing Team	50		24	+0.613 1'39.508	0.072	210.085
13	Y. Sekiguchi ITOCHU ENEX TEAM IMPUL	19		17	+0.696 1'39.591	0.083	209.910
14	Y. Kunimoto Team KCMG	18		23	+0.781 1'39.676	0.085	209.731
15	K. Oshima docomo business ROOKIE	14		26	+0.890 1'39.785	0.109	209.502
16	R. Hirakawa ITOCHU ENEX TEAM IMPUL	20		19	+1.031 1'39.926	0.141	209.206
17	R. Okusa TGM Grand Prix	53		26	+1.121 1'40.016	0.090	209.018
18	U. Sasahara Vantelin Team TOM'S	36		21	+1.299 1'40.194	0.178	208.647
19	K. Kobayashi Team KCMG	7		20	+1.483 1'40.378	0.184	208.264
20	C. Bolukbasi TGM Grand Prix	55		23	+1.610 1'40.505	0.127	208.001
21	R. Hyman B-Max Racing Team	51		18	+4.287 1'43.182	2.677	202.605
22	K. Kotaka Kondo Racing	4		5	+9.761 1'48.656	5.474	192.398
View full results