Max seem to be calm and not surprise that they would win at Japan after the great results they had during practice 1,2,3 also their great advantage over the rest of the pack during Quali on Saturday so it was just a matter of a good start and start building their gap, the race was a bit boring for the naked eye but there were a good few battles plus a lot of accidents on the first laps of the race.
On Sunday after Max won the F1 Japan GP all he needs to win his third consecutive drivers championship is first place at the sprint race in Quatar GP on Octover, 8, 2023.
With a big advantage over his team partner Checo Perez, if Max win on Saturday 7, 2023 the Sprint Race at Qatar next weekend he will once again become F1 Driver Champion, Singapore seem to be just a blip on the Matrix, a bad weekend for the team and it certainly look like after they start doing changes back and forward like they had no clue what was going on, that's not the Red Bull we have seen for the past two years. Winning both championships lets the team relax a bit, although they will still aim for the win; they can now start making plans for the next season.
After Singapore there were a lot of media outlets from Sports Websites to Youtubers saying that a new regulation regarding flexing wings was the reason why Red Bull was so affected on Singapore and this was the end to their kingdom, during the year even Hamilton mention that their advantage was too much and the FIA should look into it, to me that was just Lewis been sour since they dont have the pace, actually not even Checo with the same car has the pace to beat Max.
An interesting chart on the Twitter F1 account, the most Constructors Championships are for Mercedes with 8 consecutive, next Ferrari with 6, question is will Red Bull challenge Mercedes?
F1 Japan GP was a very special day not only for Red Bull Racing but also for McLaren and Oscar Piastri, at the first there was all the drama of him moving from Alpine to McLaren then all the mocking from Alpine since at the time this happen their car was superior than McLaren plus Richardo was performing very poor and Lando was not consistent enough but ever since Silverstone this year the McLaren car got wings, their car is flying and its up to their drivers to master the car. This improvements has aloud Piastri show his talent, fighting for a good amount of races during the year and finally got his first podium on Formula 1, third place and Driver of The Day.
McLaren got a double podium at Japan and their car is looking great for next year so far, not only they are competitive but in circuits like Suzuka they are far ahead from the rest of the field, Suzuka been a proper circuit show the real performance of each team, the first row didn't make many errors except Aston Martin who choose a poor strategy for Fernando Alonso, my point is that this circuit really shows how far is McLaren from the rest of the field int terms of performance but they still have a lot of work to do on circuits with tight corners.
Mercedes, a very spicy battle between the two Mercedes, last season everyone was bashing Hamilton for not performing after he got beat by Max on 2021 but he was not feeling the car anymore, everyone thought it was a metal barrier as most athletes when they get defeat, Russell the new guy on the team was performing better than him but many people mention it, why he wouldn't he is use to drive the crappy Williams. Comes 2023 and Mercedes change their entire car, add side pods, change the floor, the car is not bouncing as before and also made some changes to the cockpit so Hamilton was not feeling he was driving on top of the front wheels, all this changes seem to be in favor of Hamilton.
2023 Hamilton is third on the Drivers Championship while Russell is eight, there have been a few races where they are neck to neck so obviously we get this interesting fight between teammates, in Japan the radio message from the crew was loud and clear "just make sure you leave enough room" meaning you are free to fight but keep it clean.
Final Thoughts
Suzuka was a great race, not exactly boring since there were a few accidents that kept things interesting at first but not too big to generate red flags and stop the race, when things got going there were a good amount of laps where Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren were fighting all over the place, at the middle of the race Mercedes even had a chance to potentially be at the podium but the second row of the podium was dominated by McLaren so it was a scrap fight for the rest of the points, McLaren was never a rival to Max.
To end this post, I'm a fan of the sport so I love seen new drivers perform like Piastri, I love to see drivers who deserve more credit like Carlos Sainz win a race but I just hate the Ferrari / Alpine mentality to think they are much bigger than others, the sport move so fast than in a blink of an eye a new team or driver emerge and takes your spot, reason I'm not a fan for that type of mentality, have to be humble and not be a cry baby.
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#formula1 #sports #f1 #redbullracing #constructorschampion #domination #mclarenpodium #piastripodium #piastrithird
