Ayumu Iwasa finishes in a point-scoring 7th place in the Feature Race and rises to 10th in the championship with consecutive points

Under conditions with an ambient temperature of 26°C and a track temperature of 36°C, the formation lap got underway at 4:35pm. The race was run on 27 laps as the formation lap had to be repeated for the field to be fully ready to start the race. 

Iwasa, who got off to a slightly slow start, was pushed hard by the trailing cars, but defended his position to finish the first lap in 6th. On Lap 4, the DAMS driver caught the car in front on the main straight and overtook it on the first corner to move up to 5th. Starting on soft tyres, Iwasa returned to the pit on Lap 10 for a tyre change and rejoined the pack in 11th position.

On Lap 11, when the cars that had started on soft tyres completed their pit stops, Iwasa was in 9th position. However, his pace did not improve much after that, and on Laps 12 and 13 he was overtaken one after another, dropping to 11th place. In the second half of the race, he was still unable to increase his speeds much and the gap to the front runners gradually widened.

Towards the end of the race, cars with the alternate strategy pulled into the pits, and by the time all cars had pitted on Lap 24, Iwasa had leaped up to 7th position. However, even in the final laps, he didn’t have the speed to put pressure on the leaders and kept his position to finish in 7th. Winning six points in his back-to-back point-scoring result following the Sprint Race on the previous day, Iwasa moved up to 10th in the Drivers’ Championship on 10 points.