Suzuka Super Formula: Nojiri takes vital pole, Lawson P7

Tomoki Nojiri scored a vital pole position for his Super Formula title hopes in qualifying for the penultimate round of the season at Suzuka, as Liam Lawson only managed seventh on the grid.

Mugen driver Nojiri set a lap of 1m37.292s to grab the top spot in the final three minutes of the second segment of qualifying, which was red-flagged and restarted after a crash for Ren Sato at Degner.

Nojiri's time was enough to beat championship leader Ritomo Miyata to pole by just over three tenths of a second, giving him three bonus points while Miyata scored two.

It means Nojiri now goes into Saturday's race nine points behind Miyata, with Lawson now 10 points adrift after failing to score.

Unlike Nojiri and Miyata, Lawson opted not to equip a fresh set of tyres for the final part of qualifying after the session resumed, and ended up almost six tenths of a second off his team-mate.

That followed scenes of the two Mugen drivers vying for track position on the warm-up lap, with Nojiri expressing his displeasure with Lawson over team radio and in his parc ferme interview.

"[Lawson] passed me between Turns 1 and 2," said Nojiri in the post-qualifying press conference. "I looked in my right mirror and was like, 'huh, he's not there' and then I realised he had passed me on the left.

"I was really annoyed about that. Then we were really close again on the back straight, which was probably shown on TV. If he was going to do that kind of thing, I felt I had to do something to get back at him.

"I thought I would close right up to him, but honestly, we almost collided. It was a bit risky."

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Dandelion Racing pair Tadasuke Makino and Kakunoshin Ota will share the second row of the grid, with Sho Tsuboi (Inging) and Ryo Hirakawa (Impul) lining up fifth and sixth.

Behind Lawson, Kenta Yamashita was eighth-fastest for Kondo Racing, followed by Kamui Kobayashi (KCMG) and Nobuharu Matsushita, who scored his best grid position for several races in 10th for B-Max Racing.

As well as Nakajima Racing's Sato, Nirei Fukuzumi (Drago Corse) also suffered an off at Degner after Q2 was restarted, leaving him down in 11th on the grid.

Cem Bolukbasi scored his season-best grid slot of 14th for TGM Grand Prix after going seventh-fastest in his Q1 group.

Team-mate Riki Okusa, making his Super Formula debut in place of Toshiki Oyu, was 10th fastest in his group but promoted to 17th on the grid after Hiroki Otsu (Nakajima) lost his best lap for exceeding track limits.

Suzuka Super Formula - Q2 results (Round 8):

Driver Info

Cla	Driver	#	Laps	Time	Interval	km/h
1	T. Nojiri Team Mugen	1	5	1'37.292		214.870
2	R. Miyata Vantelin Team TOM'S	37	6	+0.307 1'37.599	0.307	214.194
3	T. Makino Dandelion Racing	5	5	+0.345 1'37.637	0.038	214.111
4	K. Ohta Dandelion Racing	6	5	+0.414 1'37.706	0.069	213.960
5	S. Tsuboi P.MU/CERUMO･INGING	38	5	+0.425 1'37.717	0.011	213.936
6	R. Hirakawa ITOCHU ENEX TEAM IMPUL	20	5	+0.564 1'37.856	0.139	213.632
7	L. Lawson Team Mugen	15	5	+0.586 1'37.878	0.022	213.584
8	K. Yamashita Kondo Racing	3	5	+0.643 1'37.935	0.057	213.459
9	K. Kobayashi Team KCMG	7	5	+0.930 1'38.222	0.287	212.836
10	N. Matsushita B-Max Racing Team	50	5	+1.548 1'38.840	0.618	211.505
11	R. Sato TCS Nakajima Racing	65	2	+30.764 2'08.056	29.216	163.250
12	N. Fukuzumi ThreeBond Racing	12	4	+31.544 2'08.836	0.780	162.262
View full results