Yuhi Sekiguchi topped a rain-soaked qualifying for this weekend's Fuji Super Formula round, ending reigning champion Tomoki Nojiri's streak of pole positions.
<img src="https://production-cms-mss.s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com/0_f16bddb502.jpg" alt="" width="1190" height="794" />
Impul man Sekiguchi claimed the top spot with a 1m35.951s to give the Toyota-powered contingent its first pole of the season, also ending a run of four poles for Nojiri and five for the Mugen Honda team.
Owing to poor weather conditions, the usual two-part knockout qualifying format was abandoned in favour of a single 30-minute session to decide the grid, with the track staying wet throughout.
The top three qualifying times all came early in the session before a crash for Kamui Kobayashi (KCMG) at the Turn 15 left-hander after just seven minutes brought out the first of three red flags.
Almost nine tenths behind Sekiguchi in second was Inging's Sho Tsuboi on a 1m36.858s, while Nojiri's best time of 1m37.240s still allowed him to extended his championship lead with a single bonus point for third.
Watch all Super Formula races live on <a href="https://motorsport.tv/login" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Motorsport.tv</a> (available worldwide except Japan). <a href="https://motorsport.tv/program/super-formula-live-racing/31" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Click here for more information</a>.
With the rain intensifying in the 10-minute delay, improvements were thin on the ground - Sena Sakaguchi (Inging)'s effort of 1m37.278s to jump up to P4 being a notable exception - until the second stoppage was triggered with just over six minutes left as Ritomo Miyata (TOM'S) coasted to a halt at the outside of Turn 13.
Action resumed for one final time after that, but with the track conditions even worse by this time, there were no further improvements until the red flags came out again with around 90 seconds to go.
The session was not resumed thereafter, guaranteeing Sekiguchi and Impul its first pole since last year's Sugo round, and Tsuboi by far his best grid slot of a miserable season so far.
<img src="https://production-cms-mss.s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com/1_c1cc7a3d43.webp" alt="" />
Sekiguchi's teammate Ryo Hirakawa had qualified sixth behind the Dandelion Racing machine of Hiroki Otsu, but lost his best lap owing to a track limits infringement and will instead start 11th. Nojiri's bonus point means Hirakawa is now 18 points behind in the drivers' standings.
Tadasuke Makino had qualified seventh but will now join teammate Otsu on the third row, while the other realistic title contender, Sugo winner Sacha Fenestraz (Kondo Racing), was promoted to seventh but is now 25 points down on Nojiri.
With Miyata dropping to the rear for causing the second red flag, Nirei Fukuzumi (Drago Corse), Suzuka winner Nobuharu Matsushita (B-Max Racing) and Toshiki Oyu (Nakajima Racing) completed the top 10.
Ukyo Sasahara (Mugen), who scored the first pole of the season at Fuji back in April, qualified down in 16th but was promoted to 13th after Hirakawa, Kenta Yamashita (Kondo) and Ren Sato (Team Goh) all lost their best laps, one place ahead of the struggling Giuliano Alesi (TOM'S).
Sunday's Fuji race is slated to get underway at 14:30 local time (GMT +9).
<a href="https://motorsportstats.com/results/super-formula/2022/fuji-2/classification/starting-grid">Fuji Super Formula qualifying results</a>

Super Formula

Fuji Speedway

Yuhi Sekiguchi

Tomoki Nojiri

large_0.jpg

medium_0.jpg

small_0.jpg

thumbnail_0.jpg

0.jpg

By Jamie Klein

Fuji Super Formula: Sekiguchi ends Nojiri's pole streak

Toto Wolff insists his Mercedes Formula 1 team is "sticking together" amid comments from Lewis Hamilton that it 'didn't listen' to his input on the 2023 car
<img src="https://production-cms-mss.s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com/0_ef6b57eb0a.jpg" alt="" width="1125" height="751" />
After making rapid progress towards the end of a troubled 2022 campaign, Mercedes was hopeful of closing the gap with Red Bull and Ferrari but instead has found itself further adrift in the Bahrain Grand Prix.
Mercedes came out of the 2023 season opener as the fourth-fastest team after Hamilton was powerless to resist Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso on his charge to the podium behind both Red Bulls. Team-mate George Russell was similarly beaten to sixth by Lance Stroll.
Having dialed out crippling porpoising issues with help from the raised floor rules for 2023, Mercedes hoped it would finally be able to unearth the full potential of its design philosophy.
But when Bahrain qualifying confirmed that Mercedes had regressed instead, team boss Wolff admitted the Brackley outfit would have to abandon the W14's design concept, saying he "didn't think this package is going to be competitive eventually."
After the race Lewis Hamilton told BBC 5 Live that the team 'didn't' listen' to his input on the 2023 car, saying: "Last year, there were things I told them, I said the issues that are with the car.
"I've driven so many cars in my life, so I know what a car needs, I know what a car doesn't need. And I think it's really about accountability.
"It's about owning up and saying: 'Yeah, you know what? We didn't listen to you. It's not where it used to be and we've got to work.'"
<img src="https://production-cms-mss.s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com/2_5d8e9c44a8.jpg" alt="" width="1135" height="756" />
Despite those hints of frustration from the seven-time world champion, Wolff insisted the team is sticking together and its strong relationship with Hamilton is intact.
"The Lewis situation is you heard him on the radio. He is an integral part of the team, picking the team up and we are all sticking together and I don&rsquo;t think that is going to change just because we had a start that was really bad," Wolff said.
"We have won eight constructors' championships and six drivers&rsquo; championships with him and that relationship holds.&rdquo;
Hamilton's Mercedes deal is running out at the end of the year, but Wolff says he is not yet worried about losing the eight-time world champion.
"As much as being transparent as to how we need to turn the car around, it is not the point to talk about the driver situation in 2024," he replied when asked if he has a plan B in case Hamilton decides to walk away.
"It is far too early, we need to all push in then same direction, the drivers, the engineers, all the management rather than throwing in the towel. We have never done that and we will not do it.&rdquo;
"We just need to really dig deep and deeper than we have every done and provide both drivers with a car they are able to fight with."
<iframe style="width: 1132px; height: 637px;" src="https://motorsport.tv/embed/nZd8VDuU" width="1132" height="637" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>

Torger Christian Toto Wolff

Mercedes

Formula One

Lewis Hamilton

large_2.jpg

medium_2.jpg

small_2.jpg

thumbnail_2.jpg

2.jpg

By Filip Cleeren

Wolff: Mercedes F1 "sticking together" amid Hamilton's 'didn't listen' remarks

McLaren technical director James Key says that the team's current problems result from a late change of aerodynamic philosophy triggered by the 2023 Formula 1 rule changes.
<img src="https://production-cms-mss.s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com/2_e6b7e26597.webp" alt="" />
Last summer the teams and the FIA agreed to a rise of 15mm in the floor edge height as part of an attempt to address porpoising.
Having tried the new spec in the wind tunnel, McLaren decided that it would be difficult to recover performance with the 2023 car with the package it was running.
Thus, in September, the team decided to take a different route, one that offered much more potential.
The call was made too late to ready the full new package for Bahrain, which is why the team is instead aiming to make a big leap when it is introduced in Baku.
"Where this happened actually is when we took the 15mm floor step," said Key.
"So we all agreed that as porpoising protection, which was very sensible given at the time last year that was still quite a major issue. It began to improve for everyone as things improved during the year.
"That sounds very small, but these floors are huge and incredibly sensitive. Look at how much downforce it generates, massive. So when we did it on our car, it actually gave us a much bigger loss than anticipated. It seems to have affected different teams in different ways.
"And to a certain extent, it seems to be related to the floor edge geometry that you're running at the time."
<img src="https://production-cms-mss.s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com/0_4f26bfc38f.jpg" alt="" width="1203" height="802" />
The call was made too late to ready the full new package for Bahrain, which is why the team is instead aiming to make a big leap when it is introduced in Baku.
"Where this happened actually is when we took the 15mm floor step," said Key.
"So we all agreed that as porpoising protection, which was very sensible given at the time last year that was still quite a major issue. It began to improve for everyone as things improved during the year.
"That sounds very small, but these floors are huge and incredibly sensitive. Look at how much downforce it generates, massive. So when we did it on our car, it actually gave us a much bigger loss than anticipated. It seems to have affected different teams in different ways.
"And to a certain extent, it seems to be related to the floor edge geometry that you're running at the time."
"Which is a big change, because they're very big projects, and very complex projects.
"So I think the timing of the reg, and the fact that we took a particularly large hit, and then that it clearly wasn't going to come back easily, meant that we had to change direction quite late."
Key insists that the reason why the team didn't rush to get the complete new package to the first race in Bahrain was because it wanted to ensure that it was fully developed and understood.
"It wasn't like we were dawdling around and thinking what to do, and actually why don't we do this," he said. "It was sort of forced upon us by a recognition that the new regs weren't going to recover with what we knew from last year.
"That led to a completely refreshed and revamped approach to that area of the car. It takes a while to develop these things. We tried to get it for race one, it wasn't mature enough.
"It would have performed a bit better. But with these floors, you've got to maintain stability, good correlation and everything else to guarantee that it's going work, and it was a little bit risky for race one."
Asked by Motorsport.com if it was frustrating to have made the call so late, Key said: "Absolutely, I mean, it is frustrating because, to be honest, the route we're on now seems to be pretty prolific, it's doing what we hoped it would do. There's still some work to do.
"The development rate on that is so much higher than what we had. Had the reg been earlier or had we clocked the fact that actually you need to do a different thing with this four weeks earlier, we wouldn't be talking about it right now, to be honest.
"So it's a bit it's a bit of a shame, but we are where we are, and we're just going to recover from it."
<iframe style="width: 1204px; height: 677px;" src="https://motorsport.tv/embed/eHWKIl1a" width="1204" height="677" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>

McLaren

2023 Bahrain Grand Prix

By Adam Cooper

How a 15mm difference triggered McLaren's F1 2023 woes

New McLaren Formula 1 team principal Andrea Stella has revealed the reliability problems that blighted drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri in the 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix.
<iframe style="width: 1120px; height: 630px;" src="https://motorsport.tv/embed/eHWKIl1a" width="1120" height="630" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
Topflight debutant Piastri became the first driver of the new season to retire after attempts to rectify an electrical issue aboard his MCL60 by fitting a new steering wheel failed.
By staying out longer than rivals on his starting soft tyres, the Australian had risen to 12th when he pitted at the end of lap 12. But the ineffective reset forced his early bath.
Stella has revealed that the attempted reset by replacing the steering wheel had not worked because the fault was located further down the steering column.
He explained: "The electronic damage was further down the line around the steering column. So, the steering wheel wasn't the problem. It was a problem with the harness probably. We are investigating. Not fixable in a short time."
Norris reckoned he was hobbled as soon as Turn 1, when his car developed a pressure leak with the engine pneumatics. Although this affected the gearbox more than it sapped power.
That forced him to pit every 10 laps so mechanics could refill the system by connecting an airline to the left-hand sidepod.
Given the limited pre-season testing, it was decided that Norris should persevere with the fault to bank data. He finished 17th and two laps down on winner Max Verstappen.
Stella continued: "There was a pneumatic pressure leak on Lando's car. We discovered this leak relatively soon in the race.
"Then we knew that it was possible only to do 10, 11 laps each time before having to refill.
<img src="https://production-cms-mss.s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com/1_b3f470d3c6.webp" alt="" />
"We decided to stay in the race, we decided to try and stay at least within one lap from the leader within the last 10 laps.
"Then if there's a safety car, try and see if there was an opportunity. We did six stops."
Despite the turmoil, Norris reckoned the early pace of the MCL60 had allayed fears McLaren was dramatically off the pace, with the Briton vying for points before hitting trouble.
Giving his account of the unreliability, Norris said: "I had a good start, a good launch.
"I made up a few positions. Then we just had problems from Turn 1 onwards basically. A pneumatic problem and various other issues, which just brought us out the race more and more. We had to keep pitting every 10 laps and that was it."
Asked by Motorsport.com to single out any positives, Norris joked: "I think the best thing was the mechanics had a lot of pitstop practice. That's the biggest positive of today."
He then added: "I think the pace was actually OK-ish today as well. We could have scored a point today, at least. It's a shame we had the problems."
Additional reporting by Filip Cleeren and Adam Cooper

Lando Norris

Oscar Piastri

medium_1019506751-LAT-20230303-GP2301_152556_67A5942.jpg

small_1019506751-LAT-20230303-GP2301_152556_67A5942.jpg

thumbnail_1019506751-LAT-20230303-GP2301_152556_67A5942.jpg

1019506751-LAT-20230303-GP2301_152556_67A5942.jpg

By Matt Kew

McLaren explains Norris and Piastri reliability issues in Bahrain GP

Verstappen: Impossible for understeery F1 car to be fast

Verstappen doesn't know why he crashes with Hamilton so often

Oracle Red Bull Racing

Max Verstappen

Netherlands

FIA Formula One World Championship

fuji-super-formula-sekiguchi-ends-nojiris-pole-streak

Super Formula News