Whilst Ollie Bearman shone in the feature race in Monza, it was Ayumu Iwasa who gained the most positions in Saturday’s contest. Climbing from 15th on the grid to second, the Japanese Red Bull Junior Team driver ended a four-race points drought on the alternate strategy. Iwasa spoke to Feeder Series and selected media about his performance.

By George Brabner

In the sprint race, Iwasa showed few signs of having enough pace to release himself from the midst of the midfield before retiring with a mechanical issue. Trying to score points for the first time since the sprint race at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, the DAMS driver opted to take on the alternate strategy in Sunday’s longer feature race.

Iwasa swapped away the medium compound tyre he started on on lap 13, when the safety car was deployed for the second time. This left him with a mammoth 17-lap stint to complete on the supersoft Pirelli rubber which the race leaders had run for just seven laps.

“From our place on the grid, we had to take a bit of a risk,” he said.

“Honestly, when I got the safety car and we pitted, I thought it will be really difficult for us because we are [on the] option [tyre]. Anyway, we had to do the race with [the] option for a long [amount of] laps, so I was just focusing on my job,” Iwasa told Feeder Series.

Iwasa explained that it was then a mix of careful race management and well-timed safety car periods that ultimately made such a long stint possible. He even had the measure over Théo Pourchaire, who was on Bearman’s race-winning strategy, in the dying laps of the contest, which allowed him to snatch second place.

“I had a better tyre grip just right after the safety car restart. But in the second lap, already, my tyre was losing the grip a lot. I was trying to hold my position, not to do easy mistakes or something, so just I was focusing on my driving,” he continued.

“I was trying to do my best for the tyre management and position gaining. Honestly, it was a really difficult situation for us, but also we got a bit of luck… The team made a good decision for the tyre. They asked me about the tyre and also I answered to stay out, so we were really good with the situation.”

Ending a points drought

By climbing onto the podium for the sixth time in 2023, Iwasa ended a string of non-scoring finishes that spanned three rounds.

Once a championship leader early in the season, he explained to Feeder Series that it has been his qualifying performances that have let him down compared to Pourchaire and Frederik Vesti, who have long since usurped him in the championship standings.

“Of course, we were missing the results really, a lot, since some races ago. Clearly, we were missing the speed in qualifying, so that’s why we were missing the results even in the race. But, we knew that we had good speed in the race… just we were trying to improve [our speed in qualifying]. But unfortunately, we couldn’t improve it even this weekend.

“Always we are in a quite difficult situation, but we have a lot of time to work on the qualifying performance until Abu Dhabi, so for sure I will try to spend that time with the team to improve it.”

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency / Red Bull Content Pool