After an agonisingly long 3 year absence, F1 has finally returned to Suzuka for the Japanese Grand Prix! As expected, it was a very eventful weekend at a circuit everyone in the F1 world absolutely adores.
But for one man in particular it was a particularly special weekend as Max Verstappen claimed his 2nd Formula One World Driver’s Championship!
FRIDAY
For the 2nd weekend in a row, we had a very rain-affected race, with both Free Practices on Friday drenched with rain. This weekend had been earmarked for a Pirelli dry tyre test ahead of next season’s tweaks to the tyres, but the rain put paid to that very quickly. Ironically, this would have been a perfect opportunity for Pirelli to test the wet tyres and there was a lot of running in FP1 and FP2 despite the conditions.
Mick Schumacher had a big moment technically after FP1, as he aquaplaned on his lap back to the grid at the end of the session and had a big shunt into the wall. That ruined a big part of his weekend and he missed the 2nd wet session.
SATURDAY
Saturday brought out the sun (momentarily) and we got some dry running for FP3 and, crucially, for Qualifying! And thank the storm gods for that because there are few things in motorsport more satisfying to watch than Formula 1 cars attacking Suzuka in full anger on low fuel! Boy how we’ve missed that!
To win the Championship this weekend, Max Verstappen needed to win the race and score the fastest lap on Sunday. And while none of the points he needs were up for grabs on Saturday, he did exactly what he needed to do and put his Red Bull RB18 on pole position. It was actually his first lap in Q3 that was good enough for pole, as he didn’t improve on his 2nd run, but neither Charles Leclerc (2nd) or Carlos Sainz (3rd) could outdo Max’s lap.
The Alpines of Ocon and Alonso had a strong bounce back from their double retirement in Singapore to line up 5th and 7th, while the McLaren’s of Norris & Ricciardo struggled a bit more against their rivals for 4th in the Standings, they line up 10th and 11th. In his first ever home Grand Prix, Yuki Tsunoda qualified 13th as both Alpha Tauri cars suffered Brake issues. Mick Schumacher bounced back well from his Friday crash to qualify 15th and ahead of his teammate Kevin Magnussen.
In what was his last qualifying session at his favourite track, and the place he himself claimed his 2nd World Championship back in 2011; Sebastian Vettel outperformed his Aston Martin’s ability to make it to Q3 with a fantastic lap in Q2. He did just one lap in Q3 but it was still good enough for 9th, and he gave a lovely message over the radio to both his team and the Japanese Fans. “There are no tracks like this”, he said. We couldn’t agree more Sebastian!
The grid lined up as follows for Sunday’s race:
1st – Max Verstappen
2nd – Charles Leclerc
3rd – Carlos Sainz
4th – Sergio Perez
5th – Esteban Icon
6th – Lewis Hamilton
7th – Fernando Alonso
8th – George Russell
9th – Sebastian Vettel
10th – Lando Norris
11th – Daniel Ricciardo
12th – Valtteri Bottas
13th – Yuki Tsunoda
14th – Zhou Guanyu
15th – Mick Schumacher
16th – Alexander Albon
17th – Kevin Magnussen
18th – Lance Stroll
19th – Nicholas Latifi
PIT LANE – Pierre Gasly
SUNDAY
Sunday came and with it the rain was back with a vengeance! Roughly an hour before lights out the heavens opened, albeit lightly. No delays were needed this time around, thankfully, and the drivers lined up, all on Intermediate Tyres, for the standing start. Just as they headed off for their Formation Lap, Ted Kravitz informed us all that the rain had gotten suddenly heavier and was now “absolutely chucking it down”.
Max had a bad start from pole position and Charles Leclerc did momentarily get ahead down to Q1. Max, though, used the “karting line” and went full pace around the outside of T1 and T2, carrying better speed and grip, and maintained the lead heading up to the Esses.
Vettel had a stunning start from P9 but got a little bit squeezed onto the slippery white line. However, he turned in too early for T1 and, despite his protests on the radio, he was completely at fault for crashing himself into Fernando Alonso and spinning at Turn 1. Anyone else get flashbacks to Turkey 2010? Thankfully, on this occasion he survived the spin and continued on.
Ricciardo had a good start, up to 8th by lap 2, while Norris went the other way and was down to 13th after the start. Ocon jumped Hamilton and Alonso jumped Russell, both on Lap 1, while Tsunoda got himself up to 9th on the first lap putting himself in a good position to fight for points in his first home grand prix.
Half way through lap 1, though, all hell broke loose as the rain intensified quickly and the safety car was out! Carlos Sainz aquaplaned on the run up to Spoon Corner and smashed into the barrier, Alex Albon’s engine conked out on the exit of the hairpin, Yuki Tsunoda spun at the hairpin, and Gasly collected part of the advertising board, somehow, from Sainz’s crash; losing his front wing in the process.
With so much chaos, and the rain heavier than ever, the race was Red Flagged on lap 2!
The red flag originally set to end after 30 mins but the restart was postponed for another hour and a half! Until at last, with only 49 minutes left on the race clock, we got going again for what would be a spectacular 28 laps!
Upon the restart, everyone immediately wanted Inters. According to Ricciardo the track was fine but the visibility was a bit of an issue. Vettel & Latifi pitted for Inters immediately. An excellent call which eventually lead Vettel to finish 6th in his last Japanese Grand Prix after a great fight with Fernando Alonso.
Hamilton and Russell both wanted to stay on extreme wets but the lap times of Latifi & Vettel meant they were over-ruled by the team, as everyone except Mick Schumacher pitted with 36 minutes left on the clock. Haas tried to hang it out, with Mick up in 3rd, in the hopes of a Safety Car, but none came and he quickly vanished back to 10th before pitting with 28 minutes to go.
After only 10 minutes, all drivers began complaining about inters degrading. Except for Max who continued pulling out several seconds per lap on Charles Leclerc. With 13 minutes to go there was another rush of pit stops with Stroll, Zhou, Gasly and Alonso all opting for a 2nd set of Intermediates. For Alonso that meant dropping from 7th down to 10th, but his speed on the new inters was up to 4.5 seconds quicker than those ahead, and he clawed his way back to Vettel’s gearbox to finish 7th.
Esteban Ocon got my vote for Driver of the Day as he turned on the rocket boosters to keep Lewis Hamilton behind him for the whole race. The Mercedes had a severe lack of straight line speed, with the Alpine very easily able to walk away down the straights.
Sergio Perez had a similar issue stuck behind Charles Leclerc in 3rd. Until the very last corner as Leclerc cut the chicane.
As they lined up for the post-race interviews it was confirmed by the stewards, doing their job quickly and properly for a change, that Charles Leclerc was given a 5 second penalty for cutting the corner.
That meant Perez finished second and that Max Verstappen had gained enough points over the 2 of them to be crowned World Champion for the 2nd year in a row!