Nojiri was the man to beat virtually throughout the 45-minute qualifying session on Saturday, which marked the first official running of the weekend with the new SF23 package following the cancellation of Friday practice.
The Team Mugen driver set the benchmark time of 1m22.062s around the halfway mark that would go unbeaten for the remainder of the session.
That compares with a 1m21.404s in qualifying for the first race of 2022 with the previous SF19 car.
Ritomo Miyata proved to be Nojiri’s nearest challenger, bagging a spot on the front row for TOM’S, a scant 0.046 seconds slower than the poleman.
Red Bull junior Lawson, Nojiri’s team-mate at Mugen, got his maiden Super Formula campaign off to a strong start with the third-fastest time, two tenths off the pace.
Toshiki Oyu was fourth for the rebranded TGM Grand Prix squad, just ahead of the driver that has taken his place at Nakajima Racing, Ren Sato.
Next up was Sho Tsuboi (Inging), followed by Ryo Hirakawa (Impul), Sena Sakaguchi (Inging), Kamui Kobayashi (KCMG) and Naoki Yamamoto (Nakajima).
Kenta Yamashita (Kondo Racing) qualified 11th in what was his first running in the SF23, having been forced to skip the Suzuka pre-season test due to injury.
Hirakawa’s Impul team-mate Yuhi Sekiguchi appeared to suffer a technical problem late in the session that prevented him from participating in the final runs, leaving him 13th.
Of the other rookies, Kakunoshin Ota (Dandelion) was 17th, Cem Bolukbasi (TGM) was 20th and Raoul Hyman (B-Max Racing) was 22nd after losing his best lap, good enough for 21st, due to a track limits violation.
The opening race of the Super Formula season is slated to begin at 2.15pm local time (GMT +9).
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Fuji Super Formula qualifying results:
1. Tomoki Nojiri（TEAM MUGEN）1:22.062
2. Ritomo Miyata（VANTELIN TEAM TOM’S）1:22.108
3. Liam Lawson（TEAM MUGEN）1:22.266
4. Toshiki Oyu（TGM Grand Prix）1:22.330
5. Ren Sato（TCS NAKAJIMA RACING）1:22.339
6. Sho Tsuboi（P.MU/CERUMO･INGING）1:22.448
7. Ryo Hirakawa（ITOCHU ENEX TEAM IMPUL）1:22.600
8. Sena Sakaguchi（P.MU/CERUMO･INGING）1:22.627
9. Kamui Kobayashi（Kids com Team KCMG）1:22.635
10. Naoki Yamamoto（TCS NAKAJIMA RACING）1:22.702
11. Kenta Yamashita（KONDO RACING）1:22.712
12. Tadasuke Makino（DOCOMO TEAM DANDELION RACING）1:22.779
13. Yuhi Sekiguchi（ITOCHU ENEX TEAM IMPUL）1:22.849
14. Yuji Kunimoto（Kids com Team KCMG）1:22.899
15. Kazuya Oshima（docomo business ROOKIE）1:22.964
16. Nirei Fukuzumi（ThreeBond Racing）1:23.010
17. Kakunoshin Ota（DOCOMO TEAM DANDELION RACING）1:23.040
18. Giuliano Alesi（VANTELIN TEAM TOM’S）1:23.204
19. Nobuharu Matsushita（B-Max Racing Team）1:23.648
20. Cem Bolukbasi（TGM Grand Prix）1:23.666
21. Kazuto Kotaka（KONDO RACING）1:24.055
22. Raoul Hyman（B-Max Racing Team）1:24.411
