P.P Yuhi Sekiguchi(carenex TEAM IMPUL)

The Official Qualifying for Round 6 of the 2022 Japanese Super Formula Championship was held at Fuji Speedway in Shizuoka Prefecture on Saturday 16 July, with Yuhi Sekiguchi (carenex TEAM IMPUL) taking his first pole position of the season. Sekiguchi has now achieved a total of six poles in Super Formula.

It seems that the rainy season has returned to Japan, in particular to Fuji Speedway. And so Saturday morning began under unstable intermittent heavy rain. Taking into consideration the worsening weather conditions, the usual ‘knock-out” Qualifying format was changed to a ‘timed qualifying’ where the laps would be clocked over a 30-minute running time.

QF P.2 Sho Tsuboi(P.MU/CERUMO･INGING)

At the start of the session, at 15:10, the weather was lulling. All drivers entered the track at the same time as the Qualifying session started, hoping to attack at a time when the rainfall was as low as possible. However, about seven minutes into the session, the session was red-flagged after Kamui Kobayashi (KCMG) spun and crashed in sector 3. At this time, the top lap time was 1 min 35.951 sec, set by Sekiguchi on the second lap of the Quali followed by Sho Tsuboi (P.MU/CERUMO/INGING) and Tomoki Nojiri (TEAM MUGEN).v

QF P.3 Tomoki Nojiri(TEAM MUGEN)
　
　After Kobayashi’s car was removed from the track, the qualifying resumed, but due to the increasing amount of rain on the track, no car was able to improve the lap times. The session was red-flagged once again when Ritomo Miyata (Kuo VANTELIN TEAM TOM’S) went off track. After this, and still under the red- flag, the increasing amount of rain gave no choice but to call it a day.

　As a result, Sekiguchi took his first pole position of the season, Tsuboi finished second on the grid and Nojiri, who had five consecutive pole positions on the line, ended in third on the grid. Ryo Hirakawa (carenex TEAM IMPUL) the second rank in the Championship, finished 11th and Sascha Fenestraz (KONDO RACING), who is ranking 3rd, will start the race from the 7th grid.

QF P.11 Ryo Hirakawa(carenex TEAM IMPUL)

QF P.7 Sascha Fenestraz(KONDO RACING)

The race will be held tomorrow, Sunday 17 July, also at Fuji Speedway in Shizuoka Prefecture.