Testing report

Super Formula Suzuka December Testing

Sato fastest as Super Formula rookie test comes to close

Nakajima Racing's Ren Sato concluded Super Formula's post-season rookie test at Suzuka with the fastest time, narrowly eclipsing TOM'S driver Ritomo Miyata.

Jamie Klein

Edited: Dec 8, 2022, 4:18 PM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

Ren Sato, TCS NAKAJIMA RACING

After crashing twice on his way to the sixth-fastest time overall during the first day of testing on Wednesday, Sato enjoyed a much smoother day on Thursday, setting a best time of 1m35.332s in the closing stages of the two-hour afternoon session.

Miyata had topped the morning session, but fell just 0.018s short of Sato as most drivers equipped new tyres for their final runs.

Naoki Yamamoto, who had paced the first day of the test, ended up third-fastest on Thursday 0.115s slower than the driver that is expected to become his new teammate at Nakajima next season.

It came as the two Nakajima drivers swapped cars for the second day of testing, with Sato taking over the #64 car usually driven by Yamamoto and the three-time champion taking over the #65 machine.

Kakunoshin Ota was by far the best of the rookies in fourth place for Dandelion Racing, narrowly shading Hiroki Otsu in a boost to his chances of landing a full-time seat at the team for next year.

Next-best of the six newcomers was Seita Nonaka, who took over in the #7 KCMG car on Thursday with Kamui Kobayashi having to head to Italy for this week's FIA Prize Giving along with Ryo Hirakawa.

Nonaka ended up 13th-fastest, just behind his KCMG teammate Yuji Kunimoto.

Igor Fraga was 17th on his second day of testing for Team Impul, leading a quartet of international drivers.

Red Bull junior Liam Lawson, 10th-fastest overall on Wednesday, was only 16th in the afternoon as one of a handful of drivers not to improve his time in the closing stages, and 18th in the combined timesheets.

Cem Bolukbasi was 19th in his Servus Japan-run 'Team TBD' entry, while Raoul Hyman was 20th for B-Max Racing after suffering a crash at Degner in the closing stages of the afternoon session.

In his first day of driving for TOM'S, Ukyo Sasahara was 15th-quickest, going marginally slower than his rival for the vacant seat alongside Miyata, Giuliano Alesi, had managed on Wednesday.

However, Sasahara was unable to complete his final flying lap on new tyres owing to Hyman's crash.

After an opening day of testing punctuated by seven red flags, there were only two stoppages on Thursday - one in the morning when Hyman's B-Max car came to a stop, and a second in the afternoon when the Dandelion car of Ota likewise ground to a halt.

Suzuka testing Day 2 results:

Pos. No. Driver Team/Engine Morning Afternoon 1 64

Japan Ren Sato

Nakajima/Honda 1m36.265s 1m35.332s 2 37

Japan Ritomo Miyata

TOM'S/Toyota 1m35.535s 1m35.350s 3 65

Japan Naoki Yamamoto

Nakajima/Honda 1m35.690s 1m35.447s 4 6

Japan Kakunoshin Ota

Dandelion/Honda 1m36.061s 1m35.642s 5 5

Japan Hiroki Otsu

Dandelion/Honda 1m36.162s 1m35.670s 6 20

Japan Yuhi Sekiguchi

Impul/Toyota 1m36.282s 1m35.690s 7 50

Japan Nobuharu Matsushita

B-Max/Honda 1m36.452s 1m35.717s 8 3

Japan Kenta Yamashita

Kondo/Toyota 1m35.952s 1m35.757s 9 39 Japan Sena Sakaguchi Inging/Toyota 1m36.131s 1m35.799s 10 38 Japan Sho Tsuboi Inging/Toyota 1m35.972s 1m36.133s 11 12

Japan Nirei Fukuzumi

Drago Corse/Honda 1m36.672s 1m36.117s 12 18

Japan Yuji Kunimoto

KCMG/Toyota 1m37.568s 1m36.279s 13 7

Japan Seita Nonaka

KCMG/Toyota 1m36.846s 1m36.292s 14 14

Japan Kazuya Oshima

Rookie/Toyota 1m36.430s 1m36.933s 15 36 Japan Ukyo Sasahara TOM'S/Toyota 1m37.392s 1m36.465s 16 4 Japan Kazuto Kotaka Kondo/Toyota 1m36.643s 1m37.046s 17 19 Brazil Igor Fraga Impul/Toyota 1m37.080s 1m36.648s 18 15

New Zealand Liam Lawson

Mugen/Honda 1m36.758s 1m36.816s 19 33 Turkey Cem Bolukbasi Servus/Honda* 1m36.971s 1m36.973s 20 51 United Kingdom Raoul Hyman B-Max/Honda 1m38.153s 1m38.362s

** car officially entered as 'Team TBD'*

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article Sato 'not inferior' to Yamamoto, says Nakajima engineer

Next article Bolukbasi weighing up F2 and Super Formula for 2023

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

2027 Formula E drivers and teams: The line-up so far

Formula E

FE Formula E 17 min

2027 Formula E drivers and teams: The line-up so far

Kimi Antonelli meets Italian president Sergio Mattarella

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1 40 min

Kimi Antonelli meets Italian president Sergio Mattarella

How seizing every chance – and making it happen – keeps Pierre Gasly’s fire burning

Formula 1

How seizing every chance – and making it happen – keeps Pierre Gasly’s fire burning

How Qatar red flag helped Johann Zarco put Barcelona crash behind him

MotoGP

MGP MotoGP

Qatar GP

1 h

How Qatar red flag helped Johann Zarco put Barcelona crash behind him

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts