Liam Lawson takes victory at Autopolis to take championship lead

A fantastic win for Liam Lawson sees him to the top of the Super Formula championship standings after round four at Autopolis International Racing Course. It’s Lawson’s 2nd victory of the season and now possesses a 4-point gap to 2nd placed Vantelin Team TOM’S driver Rotomo Miyata. Team Mugen teammate Tomoki Nojiri has dropped to 4th in the standings after being absent from driving following a reported collapsed lung for the reigning world champion.

Qualifying landed Sho Tsuboi in the INGING machine onto pole position after a great lap put him 0.174 clear of Liam Lawson in P2, followed by Sena Sakaguchi in the other INGING car in P3. Lawson said in his pre-race interview that he was left “a little bit frustrated not to have pole, the guys did a really good job with the car, but it's a good position for today”. A good bounce back from his qualifying performance in Suzuka which had Lawson a surprising P8 with Nojiri on pole.

Off the start, Lawson got a poor start on the left-hand side of the grid compared to the two INGING cars around him. With both Tsuboi and Sakaguchi launching themselves past Lawson down into turn 1 making it an INGING one-two. The race then settled down until Lap 13 when Liam Lawson pits the earliest out of the top 3 drivers, Liam has been favouring the undercut in most of the races this year and is what got him his round-one win at Fuji. Sakaguchi stayed out one lap later and came in from P2 but Lawson fought through traffic with precision and with the advantage of fresher tires, he got himself out ahead. Tsuboi and Miyata opted for the alternate strategy with both deciding to go for a longer first stint, it was looking good for them in the earlier stages with leader Tsuboi having over a thirty-second gap to Liam Lawson. Miyata was five seconds behind the leader who began to slowly reel him in as Tsuboi was struggling to keep pace with his degrading Yokohama’s. On lap 24 the gap was under a second between Tsuboi and Miyata who was able to preserve his tyres better than the Vantelin TOM’S driver ahead.

On lap 25 Tsuboi dived for the pitlane and upon leaving the pit exit he emerged behind Liam Lawson who took the net-race lead on 12-lap older tires than Tsuboi behind. Lap 30 saw drama ensue as Toshiki Oyu and Sakaguchi clashed at the medium-speed tight right-hander of turn 12, seeing the TGM Grand Prix driver beached in the gravel and the safety car called. Miyata was then gifted a golden opportunity to pit under the safety car, but there was no gain to be had as the safety car did not pick up the leaders when the safety car was called so Liam Lawson retook the lead into turn 1 with Miyata behind both Lawson and Tsuboi lands himself in P3 but, on fresher rubber for the final laps of the race.

The safety car peeled into the pitlane and immediately Lawson went about building a gap to Tsuboi and Miyata behind which he managed to do, a real effort on older tires to pull away from those behind on fresher rubber. Three laps to go, Miyata passed Tsuboi at turn 1, a huge defence was thrown by Tsuboi but with a scintillating move down the inside of turn 1, Miyata got 2nd place from the INGING man and tried to chase after Lawson.

But there was no catching Liam Lawson, who took his 2nd win of the season. A magnificent display on older tires in the final stint to take victory and he has fired himself to the top of the Super Formula standings.

Miyata came home to finish 2nd after a great drive from his 4th place start. Tsuboi came home 3rd and is a decent result after starting on pole but, you’d imagine he’d be a bit disappointed considering the pace of the car in qualifying. 4th and 5th place drivers Kenta Yamashita and Team Impul’s Ryo Hirakawa went long on their first stint and benefited from the safety car pulling some impressive moves to finish in their respective positions.

Next up is the thrilling Sportsland SUGO on the 18th of June, an amazing circuit that will hopefully bring more Super Formula drama.