Toyota driver Nirei Fukuzumi set the quickest time throughout two days of Tremendous System pre-season testing at Suzuka this week.
Fukuzumi, who has switched to Rookie Racing for the 2026 marketing campaign after two seasons at KCMG, set the benchmark time of 1m36.290s within the second afternoon on Thursday in dry situations.
Second-fastest was Nakajima Racing’s Igor Fraga, 0.055s behind, whereas Fraga’s team-mate Ren Sato accomplished the highest three, additionally inside a tenth of Fukuzumi.
The opening day of testing at Suzuka was held on a moist monitor, and was memorable largely for a terrifying airborne crash for Kondo Racing’s Luke Browning at 130R.
Williams System 1 reserve driver Browning appeared to aquaplane on the quick left-hander amid worsening rain, spinning his Toyota-powered machine earlier than digging into the moist gravel, hitting the sponge limitations and bouncing over the armco.
The automotive got here to relaxation the wrong way up, which means marshals wanted to assist the Briton get out of the automotive, however he was miraculously unhurt within the crash.
Kondo’s mechanics labored till the early hours of the morning to restore the broken automotive in time for Browning to participate within the first session on Thursday.
Luke Browning, REALIZE KONDO RACING
Picture by: Masahide Kamio
The F2 graduate went on to set the 18th quickest time of the afternoon session and of the check general, 1.075s behind Fukuzumi.
Browning was not the one driver to be caught out within the poor situations, as Fraga suffered a crash of his personal at Spoon, whereas Sato, Kamui Kobayashi (TGM Grand Prix), and Zak O’Sullivan (Staff Impul) additionally suffered incidents on the opening day of motion.
Finishing the highest 5 general for the check have been defending champion Ayumu Iwasa (Staff Mugen) and sequence returnee Nobuharu Matsushita, who’s driving for the likewise Honda-powered Delightworks Racing staff this yr.
Quickest of the rookies was B-Max Racing’s Yuto Nomura in seventeenth general.
Final-minute signing Roman Stanek was third-fastest of the rookies and twentieth general in his first Tremendous System check for the brand new Kondo-run Buzz MK staff.
Kalle Rovanpera ended up twenty fourth and slowest as he returned to Tremendous System motion after dropping out of his check debut final December on account of sickness.
The Finnish driver set a finest time of 1m38.712s on the wheel of his Pink Bull-backed KCMG automotive, which left him 2.422s off the tempo, albeit the two-time World Rally champion improved by over one second from the morning.
Tremendous System’s opening double-header weekend will probably be held at Motegi on April 4-5.
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