Race report
Super Formula Fuji
Fuji Super Formula: Red Bull junior Lawson wins on debut
Red Bull protege Liam Lawson claimed an impressive victory on his Super Formula debut at Fuji after emerging on top in a straight duel with two-time champion Tomoki Nojiri.
Rachit Thukral
Edited: Apr 8, 2023, 9:44 AM
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Having qualified third on the grid, Lawson passed the TGM car of Toshiki Oyu following a safety car restart on lap 8 of 41 before settling in behind pole-sitter and Mugen teammate 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 following Lawson into the pits the next lap and initially managed to hold on to the lead of the race.
But the combination of the undercut and a pitstop that was 0.4s stop 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 out lap, 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, and the first driver to win on debut in the modern history of Japan's premier single-seater series.
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.
Fuji Super Formula race results:
Cla # Driver Team Laps Gap 1 15 Liam Lawson
Team Mugen 41 2 1 Tomoki Nojiri
Team Mugen 41 2.058 3 20 Ryo Hirakawa
ITOCHU ENEX TEAM IMPUL 41 3.771 4 64 Naoki Yamamoto
TCS Nakajima Racing 41 5.213 5 37 Ritomo Miyata
Vantelin Team TOM'S 41 6.639 6 65 Ren Sato
TCS Nakajima Racing 41 7.306 7 53 Toshiki Oyu
TGM Grand Prix 41 7.461 8 55 Cem Bolukbasi
TGM Grand Prix 41 8.550 9 14 Kazuya Oshima
docomo business ROOKIE 41 10.297 10 4 Kazuto Kotaka
Kondo Racing 41 11.131 11 19 Yuhi Sekiguchi
ITOCHU ENEX TEAM IMPUL 41 15.159 12 18 Yuji Kunimoto
Team KCMG 41 18.629 13 50 Nobuharu Matsushita
B-Max Racing Team 41 21.929 14 5 Tadasuke Makino
Dandelion Racing 41 24.342 15 6 Kakunoshin Ota
Dandelion Racing 40 1 Lap 16 51
Raoul Hyman
B-Max Racing Team 40 1 Lap 17 39 Sena Sakaguchi
JMS P.mu/cerumo-INGING 36 5 Laps 18 12 Nirei Fukuzumi
ThreeBond Racing 35 6 Laps 19 36 Giuliano Alesi
Vantelin Team TOM'S 35 6 Laps 20 38 Sho Tsuboi
JMS P.mu/cerumo-INGING 1 40 Laps 21 3 Kenta Yamashita
Kondo Racing 0 22 7 Kamui Kobayashi
Team KCMG 0 View full results
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