Kobayashi leads Nakajima on first Super Formula test day
Ex-Formula 1 driver Kamui Kobayashi drew first blood as testing for the 2018 Super Formula season began at Suzuka on Monday.
Kamui Kobayashi, KCMG
Tomohiro Yoshita
Kobayashi topped the morning session with a lap of 1m36.122s, and his time was unbeaten after two hours and 15 minutes of further running in the afternoon.
Kazuki Nakajima came close to dislodging Kobayashi from the top spot amid a late flurry of laps, but his final flyer fell 0.019s short of the KCMG driver.
Yuji Kunimoto was the only other driver to break the 1m36.2s barrier, the 2016 Super Formula champion finishing third after making a one-second jump in the afternoon.
Defending champion Hiroaki Ishiura likewise made a major leap after lunch to finish fourth, but ended up a tenth adrift of his Inging teammate.
Nobuharu Matsushita led the way for Honda on his series debut, finishing fifth with a time of 1m36.451s.
Tomoki Nojiri ran Matsushita close in the Honda-powered Dandelion car to classify sixth, while 2017 Super GT champion Nick Cassidy was less than a tenth adrift in seventh.
Ryo Hirakawa was one of the few drivers who were unable to make an improvement in the afternoon, but his morning’s lap of 1m36.647s was good enough to put him eighth in the combined timesheets.
Mugen's Naoki Yamamoto and Real Racing's sole driver Koudai Tsukakoshi completed the top-10.
Williams F1 junior Oliver Rowland was only 16th quickest on his first Super Formula test appearance, half a second down on Team LeMans’ regular driver Kazuya Oshima.
Rowland will give way for Formula V8 3.5 champion Pietro Fittipaldi on Tuesday, the second and final day of the Suzuka test.
Super Formula test results:
Pos. |
Driver |
Team |
Morning |
Afternoon |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 |
Kamui Kobayashi |
Team KCMG |
1’36.122 |
1’38.463 |
2 |
Kazuki Nakajima |
TOM’S |
1’37.547 |
1’36.141 |
3 |
Yuji Kunimoto |
INGING |
1’37.678 |
1’36.178 |
4 |
Hiroaki Ishiura |
INGING |
1’37.549 |
1’36.295 |
5 |
Nobuharu Matsushita |
DANDELION |
1’37.176 |
1’36.451 |
6 |
Tomoki Nojiri |
DANDELION |
1’37.124 |
1’36.513 |
7 |
Nick Cassidy |
KONDO |
1’37.670 |
1’36.589 |
8 |
Ryo Hirakawa |
IMPUL |
1’36.647 |
1’37.573 |
9 |
Naoki Yamamoto |
TEAM MUGEN |
1’37.278 |
1’36.889 |
10 |
Koudai Tsukakoshi |
REAL RACING |
1’37.665 |
1’36.919 |
11 |
Yuhi Sekiguchi |
IMPUL |
1’38.204 |
1’37.140 |
12 |
Nirei Fukuzumi |
TEAM MUGEN |
1’37.515 |
1’38.159 |
13 |
Takuya Izawa |
NAKAJIMA RACING |
1’37.735 |
1’38.347 |
14 |
Kazuya Oshima |
TEAM LEMANS |
1’38.734 |
1’37.909 |
15 |
Kenta Yamashita |
KONDO RACING |
1’38.539 |
1’37.926 |
16 |
Oliver Rowland |
TEAM LEMANS |
1’38.878 |
1’38.474 |
17 |
James Rossiter |
TOM’S |
1’38.822 |
1’38.623 |
18 |
Narain Karthikeyan |
NAKAJIMA RACING |
1’39.079 |
1’39.963 |
19 |
Jann Mardenborough / Katsumasa Chiyo |
B-Max Racing |
1’40.360 |
1’39.392 |
Be part of Motorsport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
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.
Top Comments