Suzuka 1000km: Nissan takes shock pole, Button ninth

Oliveira, who was nominated by Kondo Racing to take part in the second leg of qualifying, lapped the Suzuka circuit in 1m47.74s to secure Nissan’s first pole position of the year.

While only two Lexus cars made it into Q2, the highest-placed of them made it to the front row of the grid courtesy of defending Super Formula champion Yuji Kunimoto.

The Japanese driver, who is part of the #19 WedsSports Bandoh line-up alongside former F1 driver Kamui Kobayashi and Yuhi Sekiguchi, qualified second after lapping less than two tenths slower than Oliveira.

Honda locked the second row, with the #17 Real Racing duo of Takashi Kogure and Koudai Tsukakoshi edging out Kosuke Matsuura and Bertrand Baguette’s #64 Nakajima NSX-GT.

The #46 Mola Nissan of three-time Super GT champion Satoshi Motoyama and Katsumasa Chiyo qualified fifth, while the #100 Team Kunimutsu had to settle for sixth after a mistake on the final flyer by Takuya Izawa.

The Honda squad was fastest in Q1 in the hands of Naoki Yamamoto and looked set for a pole position until Izawa ran wide during his flyer.

The #12 Impul Nissan of GT Academy winner Jann Mardenborough and Hironobu Yasuda was next up in seventh, while Okayama winners Nick Cassidy and Ryo Hirakawa qualified eighth in the #37 TOM’S.

Button, who shares the #16 Mugen Honda with Hideki Mutoh and Daisuke Nakajima, drove the car in Q1 but missed out making it to Q2 by just 0.089s.

The trio will start the race from the fifth row on the grid, alongside the second TOM’S car of Kazuki Nakajima and James Rossiter.

GT300: Toyota locks top three spots

The #25 VivaC crew of Takamitsu Matsui and Kenta Yamashita led a Toyota 1-2-3 in the GT300 class.

Despite 86 kg of ballast, Yamashita broke the lap record with a 1m57.543s en route to his first Super GT pole.

The #18 Team Upgarage duo of Yuhki Nakayama and Shintaro Kawabata qualified second, while the third spot was filled by Tetsuji Tamanaka, Kiyoto Fujinami and Natsu Sakaguchi in the #5 Team Mach.

Team Ukyo’s championship-leading crew of Nobuteru Taniguchi and Tatsuya Kataoka were the best of the rest in the #4 Mercedes.

Results:

Po	Driver	Car	Q1	Q2
1	Daiki Sasaki  Joao Paulo de Oliveira	Nissan	1'48.191	1'47.074 R
2	Yuhi Sekiguchi  Yuji Kunimoto  Kamui Kobayashi	Lexus	1'47.582	1'47.269 R
3	Koudai Tsukakoshi  Takashi Kogure	Honda	1'48.407	1'47.648
4	Bertrand Baguette  Kosuke Matsuura	Honda	1'48.224	1'47.812
5	Satoshi Motoyama  Katsumasa Chiyo	Nissan	1'47.588	1'47.977
6	Naoki Yamamoto  Takuya Izawa	Honda	1'47.576	1'48.202
7	Hironobu Yasuda  Jann Mardenborough	Nissan	1'48.499	1'48.244
8	Ryo Hirakawa  Nick Cassidy	TOM'S	1'48.196	1'48.713
9	Hideki Mutoh  Daisuke Nakajima  Jenson Button	Honda	1'48.588
10	Kazuki Nakajima  James Rossiter	Lexus	1'48.825
11	Kazuya Oshima  Andrea Caldarelli	Lexus	1'49.002
12	Tsugio Matsuda  Ronnie Quintarelli	Nissan	1'49.146
13	Yuji Tachikawa  Hiroaki Ishiura	Lexus	1'49.196
14	Heikki Kovalainen  Kohei Hirate	Lexus	1'49.229
15	Tomoki Nojiri  Takashi Kobayashi	Honda	1'50.120