It’s becoming an increasingly good habit for Red Bull Junior driver Liam Lawson, who for the SIXTH time in his international racing career has won on a debut race weekend. This time in Japan where he made his debut for Team Mugen in Super Formula at the legendary Fuji Speedway!
For those keeping score at home, the 21-year old New Zealander has amazingly won on debut in Asian F3, Euroformula Open, the Toyota Racing Series, DTM (he is their youngest-ever winner, too), Formula 2, and now Super Formula!
Red Bull’s Academy has long had a knack for pushing their F1 prospects into the series to test their mettle, and Lawson immediately hit the ground running, showing form reminiscent of what Pierre Gasly did in the series in 2017.
Lawson started third on the grid, and stayed patient in the early going. Off of a Safety Car restart, he aggressively passed Toshiki Oyu, before undercutting his teammate Tomoki Nojiri and making use of Nojiri’s cold tyres to overtake – then taking off for the win. For those who don’t know, Nojiri is a two-time series champion and gunning to be the first man in the modern era of the series to three-peat, so for Lawson to win on debut is a very impressive feat.
If Lawson can keep up this fine run of form, he’ll be right back in contention for an AlphaTauri F1 seat in 2024 – but may face a tough task with such a loaded academy of talented drivers like F2’s Ayumu Iwasa, Zane Maloney and Dennis Hauger. But you can’t make a better first impression than that!
Check out the highlights down below!
Could you see Liam Lawson in an F1 seat next year?
