
The one-time Schumacher rival rebooting his career Down Under
Joey Mawson made waves in the middle of the last decade, beating future Haas Formula 1 driver Mick Schumacher - among other highly-rated talents - to the 2016 German F4 title. A run in F1's feeder GP3 category only caused his career to stall, but now back in Australia Mawson's S5000 title success has set that to rights
As far as daunting corners in Australian motor racing go, Turn 1 at Sydney Motorsport Park is right up there. In anything with a bit of downforce it’s flat on entry, followed by a little lift to make sure the front end is going where you want it to and the back end is behaving itself. Then it’s straight back on the gas. Go too slow and you’ll be swallowed up into the braking zone for left-hand hairpin at Turn 2. Go too fast and run wide, well, you’re in for a wild ride.
In other words, it’s one of the very last places in the country that you want something to go wrong. So you can imagine how Joey Mawson’s heart rate was looking when his car unexpectedly pitched into a tank-slapper right at the apex of that very corner on the first lap of the recent S5000 finale.

Andrew van Leeuwen is Motorsport.com's Australian Editor and provides award-winning coverage of Supercars. He started his career working for Australasian Motorsport News in Melbourne, working his way into the top digital editor role before relocating to Mainz, Germany, in 2012. During his three-year stint in Europe he covered a number of series, including the DTM, while working for Autosport, before returning to Australia as part of Motorsport.com's global expansion in early 2015. Alongside his Motorsport.com commitments Andrew is one-third of the successful Below the Bonnet podcast. He lives in Perth with his wife Anne, kids Nico and Billie and chihuahua Coco.
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