Photo: Red Bull Content Pool
Ayumu Iwasa has been busy with the Racing Bulls Formula 1 team this month, but he will not get the chance to race for them in 2025.
The 23-year-old Japanese joined Red Bull’s ranks after winning the 2020 French Formula 4 title, and he had a race-winning FIA Formula 3 Championship campaign in 2021 then five victories across two seasons in Formula 2.
That put him in contention for a seat at Racing Bulls (competing as RB) this year but he missed out on an F1 graduation and instead Red Bull funded a campaign at single-seaters’ top level in his home country’s Super Formula championship.
He targeted the title, and was competitive enough to deliver on that but his season crumbled in the final event at Suzuka.
RB called him up to drive in free practice one at the Japanese Grand Prix there and then again in the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix at Yas Marina Circuit. While in Abu Dhabi he also drove for the team in post-season testing, at the peak of speculation on who would fill its line-up in 2025.
Iwasa’s place in that conversation was ended the day after by Honda (which he is also a junior driver of) announcing he would remain with Team Mugen in SF next year.
For the second F1 practice outing of his career, Iwasa had aero rakes fitted to his car for data acquisition since he was running a front wing the team was evaluating whether to use for races in 2025. His run plan left little room to show his own pace, and he was 0.558 seconds behind team-mate Liam Lawson in 17th place.
When Iwasa got back in the car four days later for the post-season test, he did 110 laps and was sixth fastest.
“Today was a very big experience from the start and I learnt a lot. I was also wanting to do my very best for the team and for its future in the 2025 season,” he said after testing.
“Even for the performance running I was able to do quite decent laps so overall I was actually quite pleased with my performance. As the day went on I felt more and more confident in the car and feel like I’m really getting used to the feel of an F1 car. Hopefully next time that I get another opportunity to drive again, my performance will be even better.”
The team’s racing director Alan Permane said Iwasa “had a very good day” and was “very comfortable and gave excellent feedback”.
In SF’s post-season test at Suzuka in the days after there were many junior single-seater graduates. Super Formula Lights race-winners Igor Fraga (Nakajima Racing) and Seita Nonaka (KCMG) were fifth and ninth fastest, Iwasa was 12th on his return, while new SF Lights champion Syun Koide (B-MAX Racing) and F2 race-winner Ollie Bearman (KCMG) were also within two seconds of the pace in 14th and 16th. Bearman was preparing for his 2025 F1 campaign with Haas.