The forgotten first Lawson versus Tsunoda battle

“If you have two Red Bull cars, you have kind of a magnet in between them and they always come together at a regular rate!”

Motopark boss Timo Rumpfkeil is chuckling about his year running both Liam Lawson and Yuki Tsunoda in the 2019 Euroformula Open series, where they locked horns five years before they would be at war again, this time for the seat alongside Max Verstappen at Red Bull in Formula 1.

That magnetic attraction has “been following me from 2004 when we had our first Red Bull cars [Motopark ran Scott Speed to Formula Renault Eurocup glory that year],” continues Rumpfkeil. “And it doesn’t matter if it’s team-mates or not. Obviously, with the pressure and what’s at stake from Red Bull, they tend to give each other a little bit less room than they would other competitors because they are the first measurement against each other.”

The arrival of the two youngsters – Lawson had just turned 17 when the season kicked off, Tsunoda was 18 – at this level came amid turbulent politics in European single-seater racing.

With Red Bull protege Dan Ticktum, Motopark had narrowly lost out to the might of Prema and Mick Schumacher in the battle for the 2018 FIA Formula 3 European Championship crown, the last year for that series before it was axed, with the FIA handing over the F3 title to Bruno Michel’s F1-supporting GP3 Series.

When the 10 teams from GP3 and European F3 were selected for the 2019-21 period, it came as something of a shock when Motopark missed the cut.

So the team had to carry on with its existing machinery. European F3 had been promoted, at the behest of the FIA, by Formel 3 Vermarktungs, a subsidiary of the DTM-organising ITR. And Gerhard Berger, as head of the ITR, pressed ahead along with F3V chief Walter Mertes with plans to continue running a DTM support series for the old F3 cars under the name of Formula European Masters.

Simultaneously, Spanish promoter GT Sport opened up its Euroformula Open series, which hitherto had run the same Dallara F3 chassis but with spec Toyota engines, to allow in the Spiess and HWA-built powerplants that had run in European F3 with badging from Volkswagen and Mercedes respectively.

Further, the Formula Regional European Championship had been introduced for 2019 – in direct competition with the long-standing Formula Renault Eurocup. So, as well as the new FIA F3, there were four European championships fishing in the same pool of competitors between Formula 4 and Formula 2.

Jumping from one machine into another across the course of the season had a knock-on effect on their chances in EFO thanks to FIA F3’s sporting regulations

Honda-supported Tsunoda had won the 2018 Japanese F4 Championship and been taken onto the Red Bull Junior programme. Lawson had finished runner-up in German F4 with Van Amersfoort Racing, and the Dutch team had earmarked him as the driver it wanted for Formula European Masters.

But then he went home to New Zealand to contest the Toyota Racing Series during the European winter and, to the chagrin of VAR founder Frits van Amersfoort, those performances brought him onto the radar of Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko, who had an association with the Rumpfkeil family dating back decades.

Tsunoda’s deal was done in December 2018. And then, says Rumpfkeil, “I was actually skiing when Helmut called me and asked if I have another seat available, because they took Liam on board and at the time Van Amersfoort was still pushing for getting him in the team.” That was done in February, before a few weeks later “it was clear that the championship of Gerhard would not happen, and we moved over to the Euroformula Open”.

Formula European Masters was canned in mid-March with just six drivers signed up – three at Motopark. That pool of drivers wasn’t big enough, especially when Euroformula Open (EFO) had far more F1-standard circuits on its calendar than FEM could boast as a DTM support series.

Motopark’s five-car armada included Tsunoda and Lawson, along with champion Sato

Photo by: Euroformula Open

“The calendar and the car are the two strongest assets of the championship,” argues Rumpfkeil, whose team based at the eastern German circuit of Oschersleben continues to dominate EFO. “It is all European F1 tracks current or recent, and back in the day [in 2019] we had the Michelin tyre, which for me was the best product, but everybody now is in love with the Pirelli [now used in EFO] because that’s what they’re going to use in F3 and F2 later on, so all fine with me.

“And obviously the car, which is the old F3 DNA – a very aero-efficient car, very good suspension, brakes, very light and nimble, and it’s teaching the driver the right values. If you look at all the guys in Formula 1 and doing well in sportscars, they [nearly] all went through the classic F3 school.”

After their Motopark deals were done, both Tsunoda and Lawson also secured seats in FIA F3 with Jenzer Motorsport and MP Motorsport respectively, meaning they would be jumping from one machine into another across the course of the season. That also had a knock-on effect on their chances in EFO thanks to FIA F3’s sporting regulations.

“For both, you have to say that we were a bit limited, because we couldn’t do any testing really,” explains Rumpfkeil. “The FIA F3 regulations limited that, because if you were to do the double programme as they have done, you would only be allowed to join the official testing [in EFO], not the private tests. In fact, Liam got into the car for the first time on the Thursday at Paul Ricard [scene of the opening round], and Yuki I think did the official test at Barcelona, so we didn’t have a lot of running.

“Both of them were quick from the go, which is always a very good parameter if you have somebody stepping up to the F3 car, because guys who take 10 days to get up to speed, it will normally be difficult in their career. Guys who appreciate the extra grip and the aero right from the go, those are the guys who have the skills to progress further in their career trajectory towards Formula 1.

“Wherever they went, I think the EFO programme benefited the F3 quite a lot, because for Yuki it was a bit of track learning but also more running in the European environment, which as we all know is very different to Japan. And there were a lot of things he needed to learn, like not screaming on the radio!”

As Rumpfkeil has already alluded, there were clashes between the Red Bull duo. Lawson impressively beat Tsunoda to victory in the opening race at Ricard, before they collided in the second race at the French venue, for which the Kiwi was penalised by the officials. On the fourth race weekend at Spa, a tangle at Les Combes eliminated both.

“The crash at Spa was definitely on Liam’s side where he caused it, but it would have been easy to avoid from Yuki,” reckons Rumpfkeil. “I very well recall that day because I had a long discussion with them, and what Yuki didn’t understand was… Is it Japanese pride? The way he looked at it: it was his corner, his line. But he would still be ahead of Liam if there had been no crash and he would have given him more room. Which he didn’t have to do, but it would have been smarter than insisting on his space on the track.

Tsunoda and Lawson’s tangle at Spa was the nadir of the Motopark team’s year and a learning exercise for both hard chargers

Photo by: Euroformula Open

“So there were a lot of things they needed to learn. For Liam it was the biggest chance for him. For Yuki, enjoying the Honda support, I think he was a bit more comfortable and secure. For Liam it was a lifetime opportunity and it still is, and he wanted that extra bit, but sometimes, as we all know, when you do the extra bit it can be too much.”

That was also illustrated in another incident for Lawson on the Pau street circuit. He was chasing Motopark team-mate Julian Hanses – an underrated driver who later headed into sportscars – for the lead of the Pau Grand Prix on a damp track, with both on slick tyres. But Billy Monger, who had dived into the pits for wet-weather rubber, was closing fast.

Lawson then made a move into a narrow chicane that, for most of the year, is a mini-roundabout for road traffic. The result was two Motopark cars in the barriers, and a famous victory for Monger.

“They clearly had the pace, but they didn’t have the confidence in the car in qualifying to put the ultimate last two or three tenths”
Timo Rumpfkeil

“We all know how hard it is to pass in Pau, and I don’t recall that anybody ever passed in that spot!” Rumpfkeil exclaims. “Simply there is no way two cars can fit there. That was the impatience and the desire to do something extra-good and that clearly backfired.”

Alongside the mishaps, Lawson won four races: as well as the Ricard opener, he triumphed in the Saturday race in Pau, put in a sublime drive in the wet at Barcelona to take victory from eighth on the grid, and then robbed Tsunoda in the final race of the season at Monza.

On the Italian circuit, the Japanese had charged from ninth in the starting line-up into a clear lead, only to be jumped by his stablemate at a late safety car restart. That meant just one EFO success for Tsunoda, at Hockenheim.

Despite both drivers missing two of the nine rounds – the Red Bull Ring and Silverstone – due to FIA F3 clashes, Lawson took second in the final standings and Tsunoda fourth.

But here’s the surprise. Even had they contested all nine events, they would never have overhauled the points of another Motopark driver, who even skipped the Silverstone round himself in order to make his Formula 2 debut, but has never been regarded as a single-seater ace and now plies his trade in the LMGT3 class of the World Endurance Championship in a United Autosports McLaren.

Sato (middle) beat the Red Bull juniors by benefiting from more testing, allied to greater experience from previous F3 Euro Series campaigns

Photo by: Euroformula Open

Yet for Rumpfkeil, the success of Marino Sato in 2019 is not such a mystery; more the confluence of circumstance, application and a latent ability that all came together.

“Marino is one of the properly underrated guys, you have to say,” he argues. “It was his third year in F3, so he had a lot of experience under his belt. Clearly the Michelin tyre helped him a lot, because it was a tyre which was much more user-friendly. The Hankook [on which Sato had raced in European F3 in 2017 and 2018] was a very particular tyre – it needed to be well switched on to extract the time in qualifying, and well taken care of to ensure you had the race pace on it.

“It helped him obviously that he wasn’t limited on the testing programme, so he could do his 12 days’ testing like we did in FIA F3 before. He was very confident in the car, he was with his engineer for the second year, and he did exactly what we asked him for and produced the results.

“Some days Yuki and Liam struggled a little on the jump from the FIA F3 to the Euroformula Open car and back and forth. They clearly had the pace, but they didn’t have the confidence in the car in qualifying to put the ultimate last two or three tenths – they are only coming when you are really confident. They never had the time to build that up properly and it always got interrupted by them having to go back to the FIA F3.

“In a way I think their minds were more on the FIA F3 than the Euroformula Open – that was clearly their priority, and in a way they treated the EFO more like a testing thing and additional mileage. All these factors together, Marino absolutely kept them at arm’s length.”

A friendship with Sato dating back to their childhood karting days proved a double-edged sword for Tsunoda: “It was for Yuki a bit hard to accept that Marino can beat him, and I think that made him if anything slower than quicker. He started looking at the wrong things occasionally – the engine and other things.”

It’s not as if Lawson and Tsunoda were the only future F1 drivers beaten that season in EFO by Sato. Jack Doohan, with British team Double R Racing, was an underwhelming 11th in the points. And there was a cameo at Spa from that year’s Spanish F4 champion Franco Colapinto, who was with the Drivex team that still used the old Toyota spec engine as opposed to the advantageous Spiess (as used by Motopark) or HWA.

Did Rumpfkeil identify Lawson and Tsunoda as future F1 talents? “I was very confident that they have the talent and ability to do so, there’s no doubt,” he ponders.

Motopark boss Rumpfkeil recognised the Red Bull juniors’ talents, but wasn’t certain either would make F1

Photo by: Euroformula Open

“But as we all know there’s a lot of different factors needed to get to F1. It’s a bit of political power, it’s a bit of being in the right place at the right moment, so there’s a lot of things that need to come together. That’s why I would not have bet my money on it. And if I would have had to bet money on it, it would definitely be on Yuki because there was clearly a lot of push from Honda to get the next Japanese to F1.”

And now Lawson has won the battle to partner Verstappen at Red Bull in F1 this year, while Tsunoda spends a fifth season with the ‘B’ team of Racing Bulls. It’s often forgotten that Motopark played a significant role in Verstappen’s early career in cars. It was his testing performances in the team’s German F3 Cup car in late 2013 that convinced those around him that he should jump directly from karts to European F3 for 2014.

“[Going up against Verstappen] is the toughest benchmark you can get, the toughest job you can have, and it will be interesting to see how they cope with that” Timo Rumpfkeil

Motopark didn’t have a team in the European series at the time, and Verstappen went instead to the Van Amersfoort squad with which his father Jos had taken his first car-racing steps. But Motopark did field him in the one-off Masters of F3 event at Zandvoort – which, naturally, he won.

“I honestly believe that Max is ahead of everyone at the moment, and that’s not limited to those two [Tsunoda and Lawson],” is Rumpfkeil’s opinion. “I think it’s the toughest benchmark you can get, the toughest job you can have, and it will be interesting to see how they cope with that.

“None of them can be eye to eye with him on a consistent basis – that’s clear and you need to grow, because Max had his share of troubles and mistakes he’s done, which is always part of the way. But he wasn’t so much under the microscope at that point, whereas these drivers both are, and it will be interesting to see how much patience they have.”

Lawson now faces the ultimate challenge of going up against Verstappen at Red Bull

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool