Off we go again to one racetrack that we haven’t visited for a while now: Suzuka! The Japan Grand Prix will be an interesting one. For starters, it is the home race for Honda which is the engine supplier of Red Bull. Not only that but Max Verstappen will have the chance to win his second world Championship here. It would be a perfect conspiracy to believe in that Christian Horner sabotaged the qualifying and race of Max in Singapore, just so he can have his win in Japan an get a big ego boost to Honda. But like I said, this is a BIG conspiracy that nobody should believe in! In order to win his second title, Max needs to score 8 points more than Leclerc and 6 more than his teammate Sergio Perez. I think it is totally doable and I am expecting an interesting race in Japan.
What’s also interesting is that Pierre Gasly will leave Alpha Tauri at the end of the season. In my opinion a move that has been overdue for quite a while now. He will leave for Alpine, making it two French drivers in the Alpine cockpit next season. With Ocon and Gasly, Alpine will have to solid drivers but I don’t think they will have a great shot at the title, unfortunately. This brings up the question, who could fill in the empty spot at Alpha Tauri? This will be filled by Nyck de Vries! This is a very interesting constellation because, if this guy performs well, he will definitely get a shot at a Red Bull seat and a potential Dutch era at Red Bull once Sergio Perez retires. All in all it looks like there are only a few free seats left for next season.
Qualifying: Strong Vettel In Suzuka
After rainy practice days, the qualifying showed us a glance on what a dry race could look like. After Q1 both Williams and the Haas of Kevin Magnussen were eliminated. They were joined by Lance Stroll in his Aston Martin as well as Pierre Gasly who is really not performing well this season. After Q2 we lost both Alfa Romeos, Danny Ricciardo, Yuki Tsunoda who has definitely hoped to start further up front in his home race and Mick Schumacher who is still fighting for his future in an F1 car.
This leaves us with a small surprise for Q3: Sebastian Vettel managed to outperform his teammate and many other cars and put himself into the last qualifying sector. In the end he managed to secure himself a very good P9 which could be a great indicator for points on the Sunday. The first four places were yet again split between Red Bull and Ferrari. Max and Perez got P1 & P4 and are split by Leclerc in P2 and Sainz in P3. Behind them we will see both Alpines fighting the both Mercedes drivers.
The Race: Rain Chaos Once Again
The race-day was defined by very heavy rain. It was the second race in a row that had these conditions and they are definitely not the best ones, neither for the spectator nor for the drivers. The start was a very eventful. On the first few meters, Leclerc overtook Verstappen but had not the courage to stay on the throttle. Max immediately took his first place back trough the corners one and two. Further down the pack we also saw a lot of aquaplaning which caused Carlos Sainz to crash his Ferrari. Furthermore, Vettel had a very unfortunate spin which brought him int last place. These incidents caused the Race Control to wave the red flag, which was the correct decision in my opinion. If you are not the leading driver, your chances of seeing anything in this race are just minimal and I would not have expected them to start the race in general.
Well, after that, it was very questionable, whether the race will be restarted. It reminded a lot of last year’s SPA. Well, with only 41 minutes to go we were able to witness a rolling start. Every car started on wets and a lot of drivers were saying that changing to inters could be too dangerous. But this is exactly where Sebastian Vettel and Latifi got their idea from. If you are dead last, just change tires. The advantage was that they defiantly chose the correct tires now and that they were having pretty much a clear field in front of them. It would pay off in the end as Latif was able to score his first points this season and finished in P9. Vettel was even able to get further and finished in P6.
A interesting or funny fact, however you want to look at it. During the period of pitting, Mick Schumacher was able to lead the race for about 3 meters in his Haas. Yet another achievement. Unfortunately for him, this was only possible because the team sacrificed his race for a potential safety car period. In the end he finished out of the points. Other than that, the race was yet again a very boring one. We were not able to see a lot of overtaking because of these difficult conditions.
This was until the last few laps. In the last lap Perez and Leclerc were fighting for second place. In one of the last corners, Leclerc took a short cut off track which resulted in a 5 second penalty. This put Perez in P2 and Leclerc only finished in P3. Vettel and Alonso had also a very intense battle until the finish line which was also very cool to watch. In the end Verstappen managed to get his next win once again and it was now the question whether he was able to defend his World Championship Title.
Conclusion: Verstappen’s Title Was Inevitable
There was a bit of confusion for quite some time. In a nutshell: Whenever a race is continued after a red flag, the rules say that the full amount of points will be granted. It was not clear, but at the end, we had the confirmation that Max Verstappen was able to defend his title and win the championship a second time in a row. To be honest, this win was inevitable. If he would not have made it in this race, he would have surely made it in the next one in the USA. It was yet again a very dominant performance by a very talented driver in the best car on track.
The only question I am currently having is whether Red Bull have been playing by the rules in terms of budget cap. It would surely be very bitter for Max knowing that his car had just too many advantages while other manufacturers had to drive with used parts throughout the season. Anyways, I don’t want to take away any credit from Max Verstappen as he is not the one to blame for this rule breech.
The next few races will still be interesting as there are some battles in midfield that will now require the focus. The battle between Alpine and McLaren for P4 in the constructors championship will be a close one. As well as the fight for second place between Perez and Leclerc. Furthermore, I am interested to see whether Mick Schumacher will be able to get mor points and promote himself into a seat for next season.
Published by ga38jem on
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On 9th October 2022