This year’s Super Formula has seen 5 different drivers capturing pole position, with 5 different drivers taking home the winner’s trophy. Today was the Qualifying for Round 5 of Super Formula 2017 at Autopolis International Racing Circuit. The temperature for the start of Qualifying session 1 (Q1) was 30℃ with a track temperature of 44℃. 20-minute Q1 got underway at 1:45 pm. All machines were equipped with medium spec tires for Q1 in compliance with the regulations. Andre Lotterer and course record holder Naoki Yamamoto got off to solid starts, as did Jann Mardenborough and teammate Yuhi Sekiguchi.

With 9 minutes remaining in Q1, most of the machines headed to the pit for adjustments and tire changes. Felix Rosenqvist was the first of them back on the track to warm up his tires. But Felix was met with traffic on his out lap. 

Koudai Tsukakoshi went off course with less than a minute remaining in the session bringing out the red flag. This resulted in the official clock being reset to 3 minutes—giving Rosenqvist and his teammate Kazuya Oshima a possible chance to record fast laps and move on to Q2.

Jann Mardenborough stepped up his game, and found himself finishing out Q1 in the 3rd spot. Ahead of Jann were Tomoki Nojiri and last year’s champion Yuji Kunimoto.

7-minute Q2 got underway, and most of the 14 teams that moved on to this session delayed their starts. Kamui Kobayashi was the first racer out on the track, and his machine was equipped with soft tires. Just as it appeared Kamui was going to run into traffic, he was actually able to record a new course record of 1’26.317 sec. Tomoki Nojiri finished Q2 behind Kamui and Kunimoto, with Pierre Gasly coming in 4th.

For the last of the 3 qualifying sessions, 7-minute Q3 also saw Kamui coming out onto the track first to heat up his tires. But it was Nojiri who finished the session by breaking Kamui’s temporary new course record with a time of 1’26.196 sec. Yuji Kunimoto finished 2nd, where he will begin tomorrow’s race, and Kamui came in 3rd. Andre Lotterer will begin in the 4th grid, Pierre Gasly in 5th, and Kazuki Nakajima in 6th.