Team RB will field an all-Japanese crew in the first free practice, with Iwasa joining regular driver Yuki Tsunoda in the VCARB 01 at their home round.
RB have given Iwasa the first of two mandatory FP1 rookie spots for the year, with the 22-year-old among the list of potential young drivers which also includes reserve driver Liam Lawson and F2 driver Isack Hadjar.
“I am very happy to be able to participate in an official F1 session in my home country, and I am excited to be able to take the first step towards realizing my dream: winning races and winning the world championship title for many years in a row. years in F1, the most prestigious series in the world,” Iwasa said.
Iwasa made his F1 testing debut at the Abu Dhabi young driver test last November for the team then called AlphaTauri.
Team principal Laurent Mekies said he made a good impression at Yas Marina and has since been involved in supporting the racing team in the simulator.
“He did a great job in the Abu Dhabi test at the end of last year when he drove for us for the first time,” Mekies said.
“Since then he has done some very valuable work on our simulator, including providing live support for the race.
“This on-track experience will be important for his growth as a young driver, while also providing him and our engineers with a useful real-track correlation of the work he does for us in the simulator.”
Daniel Ricciardo, RB F1 Team VCARB 01
Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
This year, Iwasa is competing in the Japanese National Super Formula series, scoring ninth on his debut at Suzuka with Mugen as top rookie.
Previously, Iwasa won the 2020 French F4 championship, which led to an F3 campaign with Hitech and two years in F2 with DAMS.
Last year he took three wins to place fourth in the championship, with too many non-scores to be a factor in the title fight.
Although RB is no longer a pure Red Bull junior team, CEO Peter Bayer told Autosport that training young drivers for Red Bull was still a key task, with the aim of having a younger driver alongside a more experienced hand within the Anglo-Italian team.
RB has therefore stepped up its TPC (testing a previous car) program, which now allows drivers to privately test the 2022 cars, which are much closer to current specification than the 2021 generation permitted last year.
“Oscar Piastri is the best example. He ran I don’t know how many hundreds or thousands of kilometers [with Alpine]but he came in and he understood the car,” Bayer said. “He understood the dynamics, he understood the switches, and that makes such a big difference, and so it fully connects with you.
“And we actually have a big program for Liam, Isack and potentially Iwasa, and we want to make sure we execute on them as much as possible as well. It is interesting that the previous car [that can be tested] is a 2022 car, so it’s finally a relevant car.
