The Aso region where the Autopolis circuit is located met with the bad weather from Friday evening, and on Saturday, the heavy rainfall with a dense fog forced race control to call off all the morning practice sessions. The almost zero visibility fog stayed in the afternoon which forced the entire program of the day to be inevitably cancelled. As the result, a 40-minute qualifying session was provided instead of the free practice session that would otherwise have been held at 9:40 on 18 (Sun). In this irregular qualifying method, the starting grids are decided, unlike as the usual knockout format, in accordance with the best lap time recorded at each entrant in the 40-min session.

It was cloudy but not foggy anymore on 18 (Sun), with ambient and track surface temperatures at 18℃ and 20℃ respectively, and some small puddles still remained on the track. With the absence of all the Saturday sessions in mind, the usable number of tyres was decided up to a total of 6 sets including 3 sets of new tyres.

As the qualifying session began, Honda/M-TEC engine users immediately showed a good start; #6 Kakunoshin Ohta (DOCOMO TEAM DANDELION RACING) led with a 1’28.196” with #16 Nojiri following in 2nd just 0.1-sec behind, while #5 Tadasuke Makino (DOCOMO TEAM DANDELION RACING) sat in 4th. By the midterm point of the session, #15 Ayumu Iwasa (TEAM MUGEN) and #64 Ren Sato (PONOS NAKAJIMA RACING) also came up with the top times. In the meantime, #8 Nirei Fukuzumi (TOYOTA) renewed the fastest lap to which #16 Nojiri responded in no time hitting yet another fastest lap clocked at 1’26.757”, a fraction better than #8 Fukuzumi’s.

As it came to the final minutes of the session, almost all the runners made each stop for fresh tyres in order to execute the last and therefore the most crucial attack. The time attack rush began with 5-minutes or so left to the session end, however, #16 Nojiri, as he began his own attack, ran over the line at Turn-1 and broke his front wing. At the same time, another car stranded at the course side after a similar over run, which brought out Yellow Flag on the spot. Numerous cars were forced to abort their attacks right in the middle of the action and had to watch the time tick away, losing their opportunity for further attack laps. #16 Nojiri who had marked his best time on the penultimate attack captured the pole position, #65 Igor Omura Fraga (PONOS NAKAJIMA RACING) marked the 6th fastest, #15 Iwasa 7th and #64 Sato 10th. #6 Ohta, who has been in good shape this season and was the current point leader, sank in unbefitting 8th. The same was true for #5 Makino’s 13th as the Autopolis winner last year and current runner-up in the point ranking found himself down the order.