Around 15 laps into the 41-lap race at the flowing Kyushu track, Lawson’s decision to pit early looked like it wasn’t going to pay dividends. With the majority of drivers opting to extend their first stints amid fears of heavy tyre degradation, the Mugen driver soon caught up to a pack of slower cars that prevented him from exploiting his new tyre advantage.
It looked like the race would be a straight battle between Miyata and poleman Sho Tsuboi, who had around five seconds in hand over Miyata when Lawson dived for the pits, but saw his advantage steadily eroded after that as he struggled for pace in his Inging machine.
Indeed, at this stage it looked like Miyata was in a good position, as Lawson stopping gave him a five-second pocket of clean air ahead. With the Kiwi stuck behind the likes of Raoul Hyman and Cem Bolukbasi, Miyata was both gaining on leader Tsuboi and Lawson.
At the end of lap 15, Miyata trailed Tsuboi by 4.8s, with Lawson around 27s behind at this stage. Five laps later, Miyata had closed into within 3.2s of the lead, but crucially had got the margin over Lawson out to 30.9s - enough to make his stop and get out ahead.
The gap stayed at 30.9s for another lap as Lawson lost time trapped behind Kazuto Kotaka, but once he cleared the Kondo Racing man at the start of lap 21, he finally had clear air ahead of him. While Miyata continued to close in on Tsuboi, he was no longer gaining on Lawson, who started lapping around seven to eight tenths a lap faster.
The window for Miyata to stop and get ahead of Lawson was rapidly closing, and by the time Tsuboi bailed at the end of lap 25, the opportunity had already passed - Lawson was 27s behind and continued closing until the safety car was called on lap 30 following the collision between Sena Sakaguchi and Toshiki Oyu, prompting Miyata to finally come in.
Miyata resumed third and battled his way back ahead of Tsuboi at the restart on his fresher tyres, but couldn’t do anything about Lawson before the chequered flag. Post-race, the TOM’S driver acknowledged that he and his team had got the strategy wrong.
“In terms of the gap to Liam, and how close I really was to Tsuboi, during those laps I think we made a mistake with the decision [not to come in],” said Miyata in the post-race press conference. “We should have come in around that time.”
Of course, had Miyata come in around lap 22 or 23, then Tsuboi probably would have responded by pitting next time. But such was the power of the undercut at Autopolis that a one-lap delta may have been enough for Miyata to get the jump, just as Lawson did with Sakaguchi earlier in the race after being stuck behind the second Inging driver early on.
Lawson’s engineer Tomo Koike admitted post-race that bringing in the Red Bull junior on lap 13 was not planned from the start. Rather, it was a reaction to the pace of Tadasuke Makino, who had been the first of all to stop when the pit window opened on lap 10.
“Sena was slower, so we were held up by him, but I knew if we tried the undercut we could get stuck in traffic, so it was hard to make a call,” Koike told Motorsport.com’s Japanese edition post-race. “I was thinking that we would come in on lap 10 if Cerumo [Inging] didn’t come in then, but I was worried about the traffic so we changed tack.
“But Makino was suddenly really fast. We couldn’t allow Makino to undercut, so we decided at the last minute to come in [on lap 13]. It was a risk because we didn’t know how well the tyres would last. But he was able to manage them well and use the OTS perfectly.”
In the end, what brought Lawson back into contention was the fact he passed Hyman, Bolukbasi and Kotaka while sacrificing very little time to the leaders.
“I think what was really amazing about Liam’s performance was the way he managed the traffic on a track where you normally can’t overtake,” added Koike. “The efficiency of his overtaking, the ability to make passes without losing time… that’s his true strength.”
Additional reporting by Kenichiro Ebii
