Super Formula: Red Bull junior Lawson wins at Fuji

–by Mark Cipolloni–

Red Bull Formula 1 reserve driver Liam Lawson emerged victorious on his debut in the Japanese single-seater series Super Formula at Fuji.

Having qualified his Red Bull-liveried, Honda-powered SF23 car third for his Fuji debut, the Kiwi consolidated his second place early on, then halved his 2.5s deficit to his race-leading teammate Tomoki Nojiri, the series’ 2021 and 2022 champion, also running in Red Bull colors.

Lawson made his sole pitstop of the race on lap 21 of 41, with Nojiri doing the same a lap later. But his stop was 0.4s slower and, coming out of the pits, he was left immediately vulnerable to Lawson by virtue of having colder tires, with Lawson breezing past around the outside of the sweeping 100R corner.

From there on, the race was no contest at all, until the race ended behind the safety car following a collision between Jean Alesi’s son Giuliano and GP3 race winner Nirei Fukuzumi.

Race Results

Pos	No.	Driver	Team	Laps	Behind	Gap
1	15	Liam Lawson	Team Mugen	41	0.000s	0.000s
2	1	Tomoki Nojiri	Team Mugen	41	2.058	2.058
3	20	Ryo Hirakawa	ITOCHU ENEX TEAM IMPUL	41	3.771	1.713
4	64	Naoki Yamamoto	TCS Nakajima Racing	41	5.213	1.442
5	37	Ritomo Miyata	Vantelin Team TOM’S	41	6.639	1.426
6	65	Ren Sato	TCS Nakajima Racing	41	7.306	0.667
7	53	Toshiki Oyu	TGM Grand Prix	41	7.461	0.155
8	55	Cem Bolukbasi	TGM Grand Prix	41	8.550	1.089
9	14	Kazuya Oshima	docomo business ROOKIE	41	10.297	1.747
10	4	Kazuto Kotaka	Kondo Racing	41	11.131	0.834
11	19	Yuhi Sekiguchi	ITOCHU ENEX TEAM IMPUL	41	15.159	4.028
12	18	Yuji Kunimoto	Team KCMG	41	18.629	3.470
13	50	Nobuharu Matsushita	B-Max Racing Team	41	21.929	3.300
14	5	Tadasuke Makino	Dandelion Racing	41	24.342	2.413
15	6	Kakunoshin Ota	Dandelion Racing	40	1 Lap	1 Lap
16	51	Raoul Hyman	B-Max Racing Team	40	1 Lap	0.227
17	39	Sena Sakaguchi	JMS P.mu/cerumo-INGING	36	5 Laps	4 Laps
18	12	Nirei Fukuzumi	ThreeBond Racing	35	6 Laps	1 Lap
19	36	Giuliano Alesi	Vantelin Team TOM’S	35	6 Laps	0.496
20	38	Sho Tsuboi	JMS P.mu/cerumo-INGING	1	40 Laps	34 Laps
21	3	Kenta Yamashita	Kondo Racing	0	–	–
22	7	Kamui Kobayashi	Team KCMG	0	–	–