RB have announced that Super Formula racer Ayumu Iwasa will make his Formula 1 weekend debut at the Japanese Grand Prix by appearing in free practice with the team.
Iwasa, 22, is set to drive Daniel Ricciardo’s car during FP1 at Suzuka next week, meaning an all-Japanese RB line-up alongside Yuki Tsunoda for the opening session.
Iwasa finished fourth in last year’s F2 standings, where he took three race victories and three further podiums across the season, along with one pole position. He made the move to the Japan-based Super Formula championship for 2024, scoring points on debut at the Suzuka opener earlier this month.
While the outing will mark Iwasa’s practice debut, it will not be his first time in an F1 car, having driven for the then-named Alpha Tauri at last year’s F1 post-season test in Abu Dhabi.
Under F1’s current regulations, each team must run a rookie – by definition a driver who has started two or fewer Grand Prix – in two FP1 sessions over the course of each campaign.
Ayumu Iwasa has re-signed with DAMS for a second Formula 2 season, with the French team confirming that the Japanese racer will be competing for them alongside, Arthur Leclerc for the 2023 campaign.
The Red Bull junior and Honda Formula Dream Project driver sticks with the squad off the back of an impressive rookie season that saw the 21 year old net two wins, a further four podium finishes and two pole positions on his way to finishing fifth in the championship.
He’ll be hoping to use the benefit of a familiar environment to continue his momentum towards a potential title fight next year, after he closed out 2022 with the final Feature Race win at Yas Marina.
I’m really happy with my first F2 season, I learned a lot during the year, and we were able to improve at each race. It’s a great feeling to continue with DAMS for another year, I feel at home in the team, and we work well together. Everyone was on the same page and that helped us secure plenty of strong results. It’s going to be helpful to come into the new campaign in a familiar environment, along with my experience of several tracks that were new to me in 2022. My target is to challenge for the F2 title in 2023. We know we have the potential to achieve it, but we’re not looking too far ahead yet, instead concentrating on being ready for the start of the season. Thanks to DAMS for their faith and support and I can’t wait to get started in 2023!
Iwasa on the news.
We were all impressed with Ayumu’s performances in 2022, especially with the victories at Paul Ricard and Yas Marina, so we were very keen to keep him for 2023. It’s great for us to continue our relationships with Red Bull and Honda, they trust in our methods, and we’ll do our best to succeed together. Ayumu proved that he has the potential to fight for the title, he was a major competitor in the second half of the season, and we hope he can use this experience to kick on in 2023. We’ve got a strong lineup with Ayumu and Arthur, so we’re hoping they can push each other to improve throughout the year.
It was a frenetic start to the final sprint race of the 2022 season, but not for Verschoor who calmly kept his rivals behind him to retain the lead off the line.
Jehan Daruvala and Enzo Fittipaldi collided and hit the barriers at Turn 3 and bringing out the Red Flag as the end of the opening lap. Slotting back into position for the rolling restart on Lap 3, Verschoor got a good getaway to hold the lead.
The cooler early evening conditions left the field struggling to light up their tyres. After being passed by Frederol Vesti for P11, Ayumu Iwasa attempted to go round the outside of the Dane at Turn 9.
Out front, Verschoor was unable to pull out of Lawson’s DRS window. It wouldn’t take long for Lawson to pounce on Lap 10 – going late on the brakes to catch the Trident driver by surprise and snatch the lead.
A lock up for VAR driver Cordeel, allowed Drugovich to slot his way through into third and left Cordeel at the mercy of Hauger, who made his own move on the Belgian into Turn 6. Missing the corner, Hauger tactically gave the place back into Turn 10, in order to avoid losing out to Sargeant and Doohan behind.
Lawson, had extended his advantage lap-by-lap and drove off into the distance to claim victory by a whopping 7.9s ahead of Verschoor and Drugovich.
LIAM LAWSON WINS THE SPRINT RACE!!! 🏆
The @redbullracing Reserve and Academy driver takes an incredible win under the lights in Abu Dhabi 👏
Iwasa moved to cover off his teammate immediately at the start bu Roy Nissany had the momentum. The duo remained side-by-side into Turn 2 until the Red Bull junior claimed the lead heading down the hill into the hairpin.
Drugovich made the move for P3 immediately as Theo Pourchaire went wide in the first corner and fell back to fifth as a result.
At Turn 6, the Carlin teammates were fighting for position, with Lawson overtaking Sargeant out of the chicane for sixth. Into Turn 9, Ralph Boschung spun and couldn’t get going again, bringing out the Virtual Safety Car.
There was a close call for Drugovich on Lap 13, into the Turn 6 braking zone, the MP driver thought about a late dive but had to bail on the move. He narrowly avoided running into the back of the DAMS driver and dropped to over a second behind Iwasa.
Doohan finally pitted on Lap 26 after running further than everyone else barring Enzo Fittipaldi. He looked to be re-joining fifth on the road but after filtering back out on track, lost his front left tyre, forcing him out of the race.
Onto the final lap and the gap for the win stood at just 0.5s. Drugovich, forced Iwasa to go on the defensive into Turn 6 and had DRS once again into Turn 9. Iwasa just about held Drugovich at bay to take his second win in F2. Lawson closed up at the end to make it two podiums from two in the final weekend.
Ayumu Iwasa, hit the ground running at Yas Marina ending Free Practice being quickest of all, 0.055s ahead of Theo Pourchaire. The DAMS driver strung together his best time early on and nobody could usurp him fro the top spot in the remainging time.
Perfect conditions were presented to the drivers as the first session of the final weekend in 2022 got underway. Following plenty of installation laps, the times tumbled as the track ramped up and Marcus Armstrong put in the early benchmark with a 1:38.987.
Juri Vips had been running in the top three but had a lucky escape, avoiding the barriers at Turn 14 after a snap of oversteer almost led him into the barriers.
A red flag was thrown as the clock ticked underneath 10 minutes to go as Ralph Boschung spun into the barriers between Turns 13 and 14. The session got underway with 3 minutes to go, but nobody could improve over Iwasa’s 1:38.168.
Qualifying-
DAMS proved that its never over until the chequered flag in Formula 2, as Ayumu Iwasa stormed to his second pole position of the 2022 season. With his teammate Roy Nissany putting together an unbelievable lap, only 0.036s down on his teammate to bring home his first front row Feature Race. Theo Pourchaire will be starting 3rd.
Unlike previous visits to the Yas Marina Circuit, the 30 minute session got underway in the blistering mid-afternoon sunshine rather than under the flood lights.
Seven minutes into qualifying and with only half of the field having put a lap on the board, running came to a brief hault. Virtuosi’s Marino Sato suffered a spin underneath the hotel section between Turns 13 and 14 bringing out the red flag and forcing several drivers to abandon their laps.
As predicted pre-session, Sector 3 would prove to e the undoing for several attempts.
The full top 10 are- P1: Iwasa, P2: Nissany, P3: Pourchaire, P4: Drugovich, P5: Doohan, P6: Sargeant, P7: Hauger, P8: Codeel, P9: Lawson and P10: Verschoor.
Daruvala got a great start from pole position but Lawson lagged behind him, the Carlin driver fell down the order into Turn 1, losing second to Armstrong and third to Drugovich momentarily, but a wide moment on corner exit left the MP Motorsport driver in the hands of Pourchaire.
Lawson kept in touch with Armstrong ahead and made a late lunge into Turn 1 on lap 4. The pair battle through the first sector and somehow avoided contact, just millimetres apart at Turn 4. After making the move, the gap to race leader Daruvala stood at 2.2s but Lawson set about hunting him down, to cut it down by 1.6s by Lap 6 and by Lap 8 the Carlin driver broke into DRS range.
The Safety Car offered a brief pause in action, deployed on Lap 9 following contact between Robert Merhi and the recovering Enzo Fittipaldi. The pair had been fighting for 15th position but a slide and spin in the North Chicane on the Mistral Straight left the Charouz in the middle of the track. Amaury Cordeel behind couldn’t avoid him and made contact, putting both out of the race.
The full top 10 are- P1: Lawson, P2: Daruvala, P3: Drugovich, P4: Doohan, P5: Vesti, P6: Iwasa, P7: Pourchaire, P8: Sargeant, P9: Sato and P10: Beckmann.
Pourchaire, Vips, Armstrong and Fittipaldi have all been penalised, Pourchaire originally crossed the line in P3.
Day 3-
After warmer temperatures played havoc earlier on in weekend, the field would have been thankful to have been greeted by cooler morning conditions in Le Castellet – allowing the grid to split their strategies.
The top five opted to get things underway on the softer compound, but that didn’t help Logan Sargeant, who suffered wheel spin off the line and dropped down to third. There were contrasting fortunes at the front of the pack, as Doohan got a blistering start to streak into the lead in the opening two corners. However, the Australian driver had company in the form of Iwasa, who immediately put him under pressure.
The Safety Car was swiftly deployed as the marshals picked up both Armstrong, and the stricken Marino Sato, who’s race ended early in the run-off section. Firing up his tyres early, Iwasa streaked ahead of Doohan on the restart, as Lawson boldly dived to the inside of Drugovich to take seventh.
The pit stop was the undoing of Sargeant’s day as well on Lap 13. The Carlin driver was unable to pull away from his pit box and was forced to retire, having looked solidly in the fight for a podium spot.
But it was Ayumu Iwasa who took the win and his first Formula 2 win! Theo Pouchaire cmae home to finish 2nd, and his teammate Frederick Vesti rounded out the podium in P3, a double podium for the ART GP team.
The full top 10 are- P1: Iwasa, P2: Pourchaire, P3: Vesti, P4: Drugovich, P5: Doohan, P6: Lawson, P7: Daruvala, P8: Novalak, P9: Nissany and P10: Fittipaldi.
We are back next weekend and we are in Hungary for Round 10, our last before summer break!
Red Bull junior, Ayumu Iwasa has joined DAMS for the 2022 season making the move from F3 to F2.
He made his debut with the team at post-season testing, he will be partnering up with Roy Nissany for the season ahead.
Iwasa, competed in Formula 3 last year for HiTech GP where he finished 12th overall with a podium and one win! In his first season of European racing in 2020 he took the French Formula 4 title with nine wins and 15 podiums.
“I’m very excited to take on my first year of F2 with DAMS,” said Iwasa. “We worked together at the test in December, and I learnt a lot about the car and the team. We collected plenty of data, which will be useful ahead of the pre-season test. I’ll be taking on some new tracks this year, which will be a challenge but I’m looking forward to developing my skills throughout the season. I used to live in Le Mans when I was racing in French F4 so it’s great to be competing in F2 with a team based in the area. I can’t wait to arrive in Bahrain and get back on track with DAMS for testing on 2-4 March.”
“We are extremely happy to welcome Ayumu to the team,” said Co-Team Owners Grégory and Olivier Driot. “Ayumu started his single-seater career in Europe very successfully by winning the Formula 4 French Championship which is an impressive feat. He also had a strong first season in F3, managing to take victory in Hungary in front of some very experienced competitors last July. This year is going to be a whole new challenge for him in F2, but Ayumu showed during the Abu Dhabi test that he has the potential to perform at this level. For DAMS it’s also very exciting to work with Red Bull, with who we have had some great success in the past, and we are proud to be starting a new partnership with Honda.”
My Opinion-
I’m a bit mixed feelings on this one, one part of me says he should do another year in F3 considering he only finished 12th, but then the other part of me says he clearly is talented as he won a championship in his first year in European racing but either way it will be interesting to see how he does.
Jordan's Track Talk 