Practice report

Super Formula Motegi

Motegi Super Formula: Oyu leads practice, Nojiri ninth

Nakajima Racing's Toshiki Oyu set the pace in the sole free practice session for this weekend's Motegi Super Formula double-header.

Jamie Klein

Edited: Aug 19, 2022, 10:50 AM

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Toshiki Oyu, TCS NAKAJIMA RACING

Oyu set the fastest time of 1m31.221s at the very end of the 90-minute session on Friday afternoon, which represents the only on-track running ahead of qualifying for Saturday's seventh round of the season.

That will be followed by the eighth round on Sunday, with qualifying again taking place that morning before the race.

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Honda-backed Oyu moved to the top of the timesheets amid a flurry of improvements in the closing minutes of the session, beating Sho Tsuboi (Inging)'s best effort of 1m31.475s by 0.254 seconds.

Ryo Hirakawa (Impul), a two-time Motegi winner, was third-fastest on a 1m31.520s, ahead of teammate Yuhi Sekiguchi and another Toyota-powered driver, KCMG man Yuji Kunimoto.

Hiroki Otsu was second-best of the Honda contingent in sixth ahead of Dandelion Racing teammate Tadasuke Makino and Nirei Fukuzumi (Drago Corse).

Points leader Tomoki Nojiri could conceivably wrap up the title at Motegi this weekend as he aims to build on his 29-point lead over nearest rival Hirakawa, but the Mugen driver could only manage the ninth-fastest time, just under seven tenths off the pace.

Tomoki Nojiri, TEAM MUGEN

Photo by: Masahide Kamio

Nojiri's teammate Ukyo Sasahara, who won his first Super Formula race at Fuji last month, was 11th-fastest, with Naoki Yamamoto (Nakajima) splitting the two Mugen drivers in 10th place.

Sacha Fenestraz, who sits third in the standings, propped up the order in 21st for Kondo Racing with a best time two seconds off the pace. That was due to an engine issue that prevented him from doing a qualifying simulation on fresh tyres.

Qualifying for Saturday's seventh round of the season is slated to take place at 9.05am local time (GMT +9), with the race following at 2.30pm.

Motegi Super Formula - Practice results:

Cla # Driver Team Time Gap 1 65 Japan Toshiki Oyu TCS Nakajima Racing 1'31.221 2 38 Japan Sho Tsuboi P.MU/CERUMO?INGING 1'31.475 0.254 3 20 Japan Ryo Hirakawa Team Impul 1'31.520 0.299 4 19 Japan Yuhi Sekiguchi Team Impul 1'31.668 0.447 5 18 Japan Yuji Kunimoto KCMG 1'31.693 0.472 6 6 Japan Hiroki Otsu Japan Dandelion Racing 1'31.729 0.508 7 5 Japan Tadasuke Makino Japan Dandelion Racing 1'31.808 0.587 8 12 Japan Nirei Fukuzumi ThreeBond Drago CORSE 1'31.822 0.601 9 1 Japan Tomoki Nojiri Team Mugen 1'31.918 0.697 10 64 Japan Naoki Yamamoto TCS Nakajima Racing 1'32.009 0.788 11 15 Japan Ukyo Sasahara Team Mugen 1'32.012 0.791 12 7 Japan Kamui Kobayashi KCMG 1'32.015 0.794 13 37 Japan Ritomo Miyata Kuo VANTELIN TEAM TOMS 1'32.021 0.800 14 3 Japan Kenta Yamashita Kondo Racing 1'32.095 0.874 15 50 Japan Nobuharu Matsushita B-Max Racing Team 1'32.109 0.888 16 36 France Giuliano Alesi Kuo VANTELIN TEAM TOMS 1'32.120 0.899 17 39 Japan Sena Sakaguchi P.MU/CERUMO?INGING 1'32.240 1.019 18 53 Japan Ren Sato Team Goh 1'32.479 1.258 19 55 Japan Atsushi Miyake Team Goh 1'32.496 1.275 20 14 Japan Kazuya Oshima docomo business ROOKIE 1'32.950 1.729 21 4 France Sacha Fenestraz Kondo Racing 1'33.274 2.053 View full results

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