SUPER FORMULA Official Website

The teams were greeted with clouds on Saturday morning with low atmospheric pressure closing in at the Okayama International Circuit. The temperature was 22 degrees Celsius, track temperature 26 degrees Celsius. The 20 minute session for Q1 started at 2:10 pm.

The drivers that didn't wear their new tires during the morning sessions- Ishiura, No.2 Yuji Kunimoto (P.MU/CERUMO · INGING), No.64 Daisuke Nakajima (NAKAJIMA RACING), and No.65 Bertrand Baguette (NAKAJIMA RACING) went into the course with new tires. The other drivers checked their machine balance with the same tires from the morning practice session. It was No.37 Kazuki Nakajima (VANTELIN TEAM TOM'S) and No.16 Naoki Yamamoto (TEAM MUGEN) who seemed to be having a good lap time from the beginning. As the drivers went further into the session, Kunimoto, Daisuke Nakajima and Baguette who put on new sets of tires moved their positions up. Ishiura, who also put on new tires couldn't find the best machine balance and had to slow down due to traffic at the last corner. He went back into the pit without a lap time. The other drivers went back to the pits after their first attack, made a few changes in their set up, and went back into the course with 8 minutes left in the session.
The time attack started here, and Oliveira marked a time in the 1'14 margin, followed by No.40 Tomoki Nojiri (DOCOMO TEAM DANDELION RACING), No.11 Takuya Izawa (REAL RACING), No.7 Narain Karthikeyan (SUNOCO Team LeMans), Baguette, Ishiura and Daisuke Nakajima. The positions changed drastically in the last few minutes. Yamamoto marked a lap time of 1'14.66, Izawa 1'14.527. But Ishiura, who was on pole last year at Okayama, came in with a lap time 0.5 seconds ahead of Izawa. His team mate, Kunimoto also came back with a good enough time to slip into 3rd position. In 4th position was Tsukakoshi, followed by Daisuke Nakajima, Oliveira, Baguette, Yamamoto, and No.20 Yuhi Sekiguchi (ITOCHU ENEX TEAM IMPUL). No.4 William Buller, No.34 Takashi Kogure (DRAGO CORSE), No.41 Stoffel Vandoorne who had gear box problems, No.8 Kamui Kobayashi (SUNOCO Team LeMans) who crashed in the morning practice, and No.18 Yuichi Nakayama (KCMG) were the drivers kicked out of Q1.

No.19 Joao Paolo de Oliveira

Q2 started at 2:40 pm after a 10 minutes interval. 8 out of 14 machines will be able to move on to Q3. A lot of the machines were lined up in the pit road at 3 minutes to go into the session because of the low track temperature. It seemed like the drivers wanted to get as many laps as possible to warm up the tires for a good lap time. As the pit lane opened, Ishiura followed by Tsukakoshi, Izawa, Kunimoto, Karthikeyan, No.36 Andre Lotterer, Nojiri and Kazuki Nakajima coursed in. All drivers did 4 laps to get their tired heated and then moved on into their time attack.
Ishiura marked a time of 1'14.345. Izawa and Kunimoto followed, but Baguette marked a 1'14.175 and took the lead. Oliveira then marked the best time of 1'14.175. Daisuke Nakajima and Tsukakoshi weren't able to out lap the others. Ishiura again marks a time of 1'13.897 and takes the lead. Izawa follows with just a 0.1 second gap, followed by Oliveira, Sekiguchi, Tsukakoshi, Nojiri, Yamamoto and Kunimoto. Kazuki Nakajima, Daisuke Nakajima, Baguette, Lotterer, No.3 James Rossiter (KONDO RACING), and Karthikeyan who went out wide in the first corner during his attack lap were kicked out of the game.

No.10 Koudai Tsukakoshi

Q3 started at 2:57 pm, with another 10 minutes interval. Like Q2, all machines were lined up in the pit road, and Ishiura, Yamamoto, Kunimoto, Tsukakoshi, Izawa, Sekiguchi, Nojiri and Oliveira went out as the pit road opened for the last session. Yamamoto passed Ishiura in the out lap and went into his time attack with a 1'14.027 in his 4th lap. Izawa marks a better time in the 1'13 margin. Nojiri follows Izawa, but it was Ishiura again who came back 0.3 seconds faster than Izawa with a 1'13.620. Tsukakoshi then out takes Izawa, but Oliveira comes in 2nd position out taking Tsukakoshi's time. As a result, Ishiura placed himself on pole as with last year, followed by Oliveira, Tsukakoshi, Izawa, Nojiri, Yamamoto, Kunimoto, and Sekiguchi.

After the session, Kogure who set his best time under yellow flags, lost his best time and dropped to the last position. Buller was given a 3 place grid drop penalty for violating the pit lane speed limit multiple times.

Qualifying Digest [VIDEO LIBRARY]