Liam Lawson has won the opening race of the 2023 Japanese Super Formula championship at Fuji Speedway (Japan) today (Saturday 8 April). The Kiwi driver is the first rookie driver in 50 years of Super Formula to win on debut and he extends his ‘Winning on Debut’ record to nine out of ten different cars.
“I am very happy to win like this and I would like to thank TEAM MUGEN,” commented Lawson. “I think this result is thanks to a great team.”
With practice for the opening round cancelled due to inclement weather and not having driven on the Fuji Circuit before, Lawson’s first taste of the track was a 45-minute qualifying session which put him third on the grid.
Lawson was up to P2 by lap 9 after the first safety car restart. He maintained the gap behind his two-time champion teammate Tomoki Nojiri until he pitted first on lap 21 of 41.
He then passed Norjiri, who had pitted a lap later, on warmer tyres and drove off to nearly an eight-second lead before a safety car period a few laps from the end. The race finished behind it – Lawson declared the winner from Nojiri and Ryo Hirakawa.
” It’s a long season and I’m not optimistic that tomorrow (Round 2) will be a better day,” said Lawson. “Even so, I will do my best.”
The list of cars in which he has won on debut is as follows: Formula First (2015), Formula Ford (2016), Formula 4 (2017), Formula 3 Asia (2018), European Formula Open (2019), Toyota Racing Series (2019), DTM (2021), Formula 2 (2021), and now Super Formula.
The only race car he didn’t win in on debut was the FIA F3 car (2019), he retired with mechanical failure. However, he won at the opening F3 round of the following season.
Sunday: Qualifying starts 12.00pm. Race start 5.30pm NZ time.
Round 1 Results (40 laps)
Position, Driver, Team
1/ Liam Lawson, Team Mugen
2/ Tomoki Nojiri, Team Mugen
3/ Ryo Hirakawa, ITOCHU ENEX TEAM IMPUL
4/ Naoki Yamamoto,TCS Nakajima Racing
5/ Ritomo Miyata, Vantelin Team TOM’S
6/ Ren Sato, TCS Nakajima Racing
7/ Toshiki Oyu, TGM Grand Prix
8/ Cem Bolukbasi, TGM Grand Prix
9/ Kazuya Oshima, docomo business ROOKIE
10/ Kazuto Kotaka, Kondo Racing
11/ Yuhi Sekiguchi, ITOCHU ENEX TEAM IMPUL
12/ Yuji Kunimoto, Team KCMG
13/ Nobuharu Matsushita, B-Max Racing Team
14/ Tadasuke Makino, Dandelion Racing
15/ Kakunoshin Ota, Dandelion Racing
16/ Raoul Hyman, B-Max Racing Team
17/ Sena Sakaguchi, JMS P.mu/cerumo-INGING
18/ Nirei Fukuzumi, ThreeBond Racing
19/ Giuliano Alesi, Vantelin Team TOM’S
DNF Sho Tsuboi, JMS P.mu/cerumo-INGING
DNF Kenta Yamashita, Kondo Racing
DNF Kamui Kobayashi, Team KCMG
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