De Oliveira leads Gasly on opening day of Fuji test
Joao Paulo de Oliveira headed Pierre Gasly on the first day of Super Formula pre-season testing in Fuji after a mid-day shower prevented rivals from making any improvements in the afternoon session.
Photo by: Super Formula
With rain hitting the track around lunchtime, all of the day’s fastest times came from morning’s three-hour session.
De Oliveira, who is subbing for WEC Prologue-bound Andre Lotterer, clocked a Fuji Speedway lap of 1m22.122s, edging out Red Bull junior Gasly by 0.131s.
Gasly was the first driver to bring out a red flag after he spun at Turn 13, but was able to recover to end the day as second-fastest.
Super Formula 2015 champion Hiroaki Ishiura was next up in third, nearly half a second off de Oliveira’s pace.
Naoki Yamamoto was classified fourth in the session, while Nissan protege Jann Mardenborough completed the top five with a time of 1m22.850s.
The two Dandelion Racing drivers occupied sixth and seventh spots on the timesheets, with Takuya Izawa pipping Tomoki Nojiri by 0.061s.
Former F1 tester James Rossiter earlier stood second in a Team TOM’s 1-2, but dropped to eighth after failing to improve his earlier benchmark of 1m22.989s.
Kazuya Oshima was classified ninth, while Yuhi Sekiguchi rounded off the top 10 for Team Impul.
While the latter was a second off on slick rubber, his afternoon time of 1m48.988s was the quickest in damp conditions.
Day 1 Results:
| Pos | Driver | Team | AM | PM |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Joao Paulo de Oliveira |
TEAM TOM'S | 1:22.122 | 1:50.316 |
| 2 |  Pierre Gasly |
TEAM MUGEN | 1:22.253 | 1:50.583 |
| 3 |  Hiroaki Ishiura |
INGING | 1:22.595 | 1:55.052 |
| 4 | Naoki Yamamoto |
TEAM MUGEN | 1:22.777 | 1:51.750 |
| 5 |  Jann Mardenborough |
ITOCHU ENEX TEAM IMPUL | 1:22.850 | 1:52.138 |
| 6 | Takuya Izawa |
DANDELION RACING | 1:22.872 | - |
| 7 | Tomoki Nojiri |
DANDELION RACING | 1:22.933 | 1:56.545 |
| 8 | James Rossiter |
TEAM TOM'S | 1:22.989 | 2:07.251 |
| 9 | Kazuya Oshima |
TEAM LEMANS | 1:23.187 | 1:56.527 |
| 10 | Yuhi Sekiguchi |
TEAM IMPUL | 1:23.231 | 1:40.988 |
| 11 | Takashi Kogure |
B-Max Racing | 1:23.272 | 2:21.493 |
| 12 | Koudai Tsukakoshi |
REAL RACING | 1:23.300 | 1:56.201 |
| 13 |  Narain Karthikeyan |
TCS NAKAJIMA RACING | 1:23.399 | 2:09.722 |
| 14 | Kenta Yamashita |
KONDO RACING | 1:23.437 | 1:49.063 |
| 15 | Yuichi Nakayama |
KCMG | 1:23.438 | 2:00.511 |
| 16 | Yuji Tachikawa |
INGING | 1:23.532 | - |
| 17 |  Nick Cassidy |
KONDO RACING | 1:23.681 | 1:49.902 |
| 18 | Daisuke Nakajima |
NAKAJIMA RACING | 1:23.886 | 2:02.584 |
| 19 | Kohei Hirate |
TEAM LEMANS | 1:24.633 | - |
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