Ayumu Iwasa soaks in his F1 weekend debut at Japanese Grand Prix

Rainy and wet conditions cut short the second practice session at the Formula 1 Japanese Grand Prix on Friday. As a result the ten F1 teams head into Saturday’s qualifying day with less information at their disposal than they may have hoped for going into the weekend.

But one driver was not going to let that rain on parade.

Ayumu Iwasa, a member of Red Bull’s driver program and a current driver in Super Formula, was in Daniel Ricciardo’s car at Visa Cash App RB F1 Team making his F1 weekend debut during the first practice session. Iwasa logged 22 laps in the RB01, placing 16th on the timing sheets.

Driving alongside Yuki Tsunoda, that gave VCARB an all-Japanese driver pairing in front of the home fans.

For Iwasa, it was special to take on Suzuka, a track he has driven many times, in an F1 car.

“I’ve driven at Suzuka many times but it’s a completely different, amazing and special feeling to do it in an F1 car. There is much more capacity to push, and the limit of the car is much higher,” described Iwasa after the session in the team’s post-practice report. “I got good experience for the future, and I appreciate the opportunity. I’m super thankful to Red Bull, Honda, and all the people at VCARB who have made me feel welcome as soon as I walked into the hospitality.”

The young driver felt he was able to get up to speed quicker than he imagined.

“There were no issues today and I was able to have a good feeling from the car straight away, so I was able to build up the pace quicker than expected, which was positive,” added Iwasa. “Also, I think I could make quite some good progress with the team throughout the session.”

Friday’s practice session left Iwasa motivated for the future.

“The main target was to get as much data for the team as I could, so I shouldn’t push too much because it was important to just complete many laps. I hope they got some good data for the weekend. In the end, my second set of tyres was to build up the pace and get the feeling of driving an F1 car around the Suzuka circuit,” said Iwasa. “I think we achieved all our targets and for the rest of the weekend, I will try to get more experience in the team. Today’s drive has given me extra motivation to keep pushing hard.”

Iwasa, who finished fourth in the F2 standings a season ago, placed ninth in the first Super Formula race of the season. He will be back in action later this month at Autopolis International Racing Course for the second Super Formula race of the season. He is one of many young drivers in Red Bull’s junior program linked with a potential F1 drive in the future.