Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Autosport
Autosport
Rachit Thukral

Super Formula Fuji: Red Bull junior Lawson wins on debut

Having qualified third on the grid, Lawson passed the TGM car of Toshiki Oyu following a safety car restart on lap eight of 41 before settling in behind pole-sitter and Mugen team-mate Nojiri.

Lawson fell as much as two seconds behind Nojiri over the following few laps, but the gap between the two had halved when the Kiwi came into the pits at the end of lap 21 for his mandatory tyre change.

Nojiri followed Lawson into the pits on the next lap and initially managed to hold onto the lead.

But the combination of the undercut and a pitstop that was 0.4s faster brought Lawson back into play, and the 21-year-old was able to take advantage of tyres that were fully up to temperature to grab the lead.

Nojiri struggled for the remainder of his outlap, allowing Lawson to quickly stretch out a five-second lead at the front of the pack.

It appeared the Kiwi would have an easy run to the chequered flag, but a collision between Giuliano Alesi and Nirei Fukuzumi approaching Turn 1 brought out the safety car for the second time.

It left Lawson with the possibility of surviving a short sprint to the finish, but the debris left behind by Alesi and Fukuzumi couldn’t be cleared in time, with Lawson taking the chequered flag behind the safety car.

It makes Lawson the first Red Bull junior to win a race in Super Formula since Pierre Gasly in 2017, and the first driver to win on debut in the modern history of Japan's premier single-seater series.

Liam Lawson, Tomoki Nojiri, Team Mugen (Photo by: Masahide Kamio)

Nojiri started his title defence in second, completing a 1-2 finish for Mugen, while Ryo Hirakawa charged up to third with a late pitstop on lap 31.

Impul driver Hirakawa was able to demote Nakajima Racing’s Naoki Yamamoto and the similarly late-stopping TOM’S car of Ritomo Miyata in the final green flag laps of the race, but the prolonged caution meant he wasn’t able to take any further advantage of fresher tyres.

Fourth-place represented Yamamoto’s best dry-race result since joining Nakajima in 2021, the triple champion having made most of the gains in the early laps of the race after qualifying 10th.

Miyata had qualified on the front row alongside Nojiri but slipped to fourth with a poor getaway at the original start, and eventually crossed the finish line in fifth.

Sixth place went to the second Nakajima car of Ren Sato, ahead of Oyu, while Turkish driver Cem Bolukbasi took a surprise eighth place on his debut for the TGM team.

The final points went to Rookie Racing’s Kazuya Oshima and Kondo Racing’s Kazuto Kotaka.

The race featured two prolonged safety car periods, the first of which was caused by Tadasuke Makino misjudging his braking and ploughing into the back of Sho Tsuboi at Turn 2.

Makino miraculously managed to continue after a front wing change, finishing 14th after a five-second time penalty.

Super Formula Fuji Race results (41 laps):

Cla Driver Team Time Gap
1 New Zealand Liam Lawson Team Mugen 1:15'37.813  
2 Japan Tomoki Nojiri Team Mugen 1:15'39.871 2.058
3 Japan Ryo Hirakawa ITOCHU ENEX TEAM IMPUL 1:15'41.584 3.771
4 Japan Naoki Yamamoto TCS Nakajima Racing 1:15'43.026 5.213
5 Japan Ritomo Miyata Vantelin Team TOM'S 1:15'44.452 6.639
6 Japan Ren Sato TCS Nakajima Racing 1:15'45.119 7.306
7 Japan Toshiki Oyu TGM Grand Prix 1:15'45.274 7.461
8 Turkey Cem Bolukbasi TGM Grand Prix 1:15'46.363 8.550
9 Japan Kazuya Oshima docomo business ROOKIE 1:15'48.110 10.297
10 Japan Kazuto Kotaka Kondo Racing 1:15'48.944 11.131
11 Japan Yuhi Sekiguchi ITOCHU ENEX TEAM IMPUL 1:15'52.972 15.159
12 Japan Yuji Kunimoto Team KCMG 1:15'56.442 18.629
13 Japan Nobuharu Matsushita B-Max Racing Team 1:15'59.742 21.929
14 Japan Tadasuke Makino Japan Dandelion Racing 1:16'02.155 24.342
15 Kakunoshin Ota Japan Dandelion Racing 1:15'55.138 1 Lap
16 South Africa Raoul Hyman B-Max Racing Team 1:15'55.365 1 Lap
17 Japan Sena Sakaguchi JMS P.mu/cerumo-INGING 1:15'50.951 5 Laps
18 Japan Nirei Fukuzumi ThreeBond Racing 58'41.896 6 Laps
19 France Giuliano Alesi Vantelin Team TOM'S 58'42.392 6 Laps
20 Japan Sho Tsuboi JMS P.mu/cerumo-INGING 1'30.801 40 Laps
21 Japan Kenta Yamashita Kondo Racing    
22 Japan Kamui Kobayashi Team KCMG    
Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.