Champion's penultimate test in F1, early and important laps (9)
I believe the answer is:
semifinal
'f1 early and important laps' is the definition.
I can't tell whether this defines the answer.
'champion's penultimate test' is the wordplay.
'champion's penultimate' becomes 'semi' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'test' becomes 'final' (final is a kind of test).
'semi'+'final'='SEMIFINAL'
'in' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for semifinal that I've seen before include "pivotal match" , "big game" , "Competitive match" , "Round with four contestants" , "Tie" .)