Fraga grabs maiden Super Formula pole for Round 9 at Fuji
Igor Fraga took his first career pole in a tight qualifying session at Fuji for Round 9 of the Super Formula championship.
Qualifying 1
Group A
Iwasa was the first to go on a fast lap but was soon usurped by the rapid Dandelion of Tadasuke Makino, who set a lap time of 1:21.856. By the end of the session, Igor Fraga was second fastest, just two milliseconds behind Makino and Yuto Nomura was third, half a tenth behind him.
Iwasa was fourth fastest, almost two tenths behind Makino. Rikuto Kobayashi and Zak O’Sullivan took up the final two Qualifying 2 spots not too far behind.
Those who were eliminated were, in order: Nobuharu Matsushita, Toshiki Oyu, Kenya Yamashita, Sacha Fenestraz, Ukyo Sasahara and Juju Noda.
Group B
It was the other Dandelion of championship leader Kakunoshin Ohta that was atop the timing sheets for Group B. The Kyoto native set a lap time of 1:22.171. Syun Koide was second quickest, just more than three hundredths behind, and Tsuboi was three milliseconds behind him.
Nirei Fukuzumi was fourth quickest and Kazuhisa Urabe, on debut, was the fifth driver to make it to Q2. Two-time champion Tomoki Nojiri took up the final Q2 spot.
Those who were eliminated were, in order: Ren Sato, Luke Browning, Kamui Kobayashi, Charlie Wurz, Roman Staněk and Giuliano Alesi.
Qualifying 2
Ohta was the first to complete a quick lap in Q2, setting a benchmark of 1:21.911 for himself and other drivers to beat.
None of the drivers, including himself on his second run, could beat that time, except for Fraga, who took pole position with an impressive 1:21.7 lap time, with Ohta joining him on the front row.
Nomura was third fastest, almost three tenths behind Fraga, the rookie putting in another stellar performance. Following him were the two Mugens in fourth and fifth, Iwasa and Nojiri separated by just eight milliseconds. O’Sullivan placed his Impul machine sixth in what could be his penultimate qualifying session in the series.
Positions seventh to twelfth were taken up by, in order: Fukuzumi, Tsuboi, Koide, Makino, Urabe, Rikuto Kobayashi.
The race starts in the afternoon at 15:00 JST (07:00 BST).
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