Japan Race Reaction
Image: Red Bull Content Pool
Picking up where he left off, Max Verstappen dominated the weekend at Suzuka, putting himself and his RB19 back up at the top where we expect it to be. Red Bull have claimed their second consecutive Constructors’ title and sixth overall - with Max able to win his third title on the trot at the Sprint in two weeks’ time at Qatar.
Qualifying
Q1 was red-flagged early on due to Williams’ Logan Sargeant once again losing control of the car and putting it in a wall, this time at the final corner. The American driver had to cross the track and climb over the barriers back into the pits, eventually receiving a 10-second penalty and having to start from the pit lane because the team started working on repairing the chassis before they’re permitted to by regulations.
You have to give it to the team - nothing, even this, seems to dampen their spirits!
Verstappen, Norris and Leclerc made up the top three, with a surprise P4 appearance for Alpha Tauri stand-in Liam Lawson - super stuff from the young Australian.
Bottas, Stroll, Hulkenberg, Zhou and Sargeant were knocked out in Q1.
Q2 saw Leclerc just about outpace Verstappen for fastest lap, followed by Pérez in third. Alonso, this weekend’s samurai, set a lap good enough for P8, slotting in behind the impressively quick home hero Yuki Tsunoda, before being pushed down to 10th by both Mercedes cars. Both Haas and Williams had one remaining driver each for this session, with both eventually not making the cut. It was disappointment also for Alpine - their French lineup wasn’t able to maintain top 10 positions and was subsequently eliminated from Q2.
Lawson, Gasly, Albon, Ocon and Magnussen were out in Q2.
Q3 began with Verstappen setting a 1:29.012, leaving 8 minutes for the other nine drivers to attempt to get near it. Teammate Pérez’s best effort initially fell 1.3 seconds short. Piastri and Norris shuffled up to second and third respectively as Checo split the two Ferraris in fourth and fifth on his final lap. Alonso remained in P10, out-qualified by two tenths by Tsunoda - if that were to happen at any GP, it’d have to be this one!
Business as usual for the Bulls?
Looking to the race now then, it became apparent on Sunday that Red Bull’s blip at Singapore was indeed a one-off. Team principal Christian Horner spoke to the media and reasserted that their sudden drop in performance last weekend had nothing to do with the newly introduced technical directive that put its foot down on flexible aerodynamic components. There was doubt, namely from Sky’s Martin Brundle, around whether the team would be able to rectify the floor issue they had before F1 rolled into Suzuka, however it’s fair to say that those concerns have been quashed.
You’ll notice there’s a question mark in this section’s subheading - this is because Red Bull had a double DNF at this race in Japan. This was of course not caused by Max but by his teammate Sergio Pérez, who (as far as we know) is the only driver in current living memory to have retired twice in the same race.
He had a run-in with Hamilton at Turn 1 of the first lap, pitted under the safety car at the start of Lap 2, received a 5-second penalty for inadvertently overtaking Alonso as he was entering the pits (adding two penalty points to his superlicense), served his penalty, outbraked himself right into the sidepod of Kevin Magnussen at the hairpin, received another 5-second penalty, pulled into the pits again and had his car rolled into the garage with terminal front wing damage on Lap 13, thus retiring. He would then be sent back out some 27 laps later, serving his penalty and retiring for a second and final time on Lap 43.
Image: Formula One
That was admittedly a lengthy explanation of what constituted a hellish weekend for the Mexican but it really does convey the now sorry state of Pérez’s 2023 campaign. Here we were at the start of the season believing him to genuinely be a title contender - now, not so much. This weekend just gone may be a cornerstone in Red Bull’s management’s decision to be rid of the driver for 2025 or even next year.
McLaren Make a Statement
Image: @McLarenF1 on Twitter
The Woking-based orange team we all know and love has come on leaps and bounds since Round 1 in Bahrain, where rookie Piastri retired and Lando finished plum-last. Since a surprise P3 qualifying at Catalunya from Norris, the team’s development has skyrocketed and, as of the time of writing this, have now managed to become the second-highest point scoring team in the last seven races (behind RB of course). Yes, that’s an oddly specific number, however it does underline the team’s recent progress in terms of performance.
Suzuka saw McLaren’s first double podium this year and Piastri’s first race day podium finish too. Their race was spent consistently near the front of the field, calmly fending off the likes of Mercedes and Ferrari - teams with markedly deeper pockets!
This was the team’s biggest points haul since their victory and 1-2 finish in Monza in 2021. Hopes are high and ambitions are burning within the team to get a leg up and have a crack at stealing P4 in the constructors’ from a somewhat waning Aston Martin.
Brackley Battles in Japan
Now second in the constructors’ championship, Mercedes are no strangers to inter-driver conflicts, be they on or off the track. This year we’ve begun to see ever so tiny chinks in the armour of Hamilton and Russel’s relationship as a driver pairing - nothing major, they’re not exactly at each other’s throats, but there have been a few instances in which there seems to be a form of disagreement between the two. We saw this also in Singapore, where Hamilton was lapping faster than his teammate in the dying laps and fans believed Lewis could’ve gone for P2 if Russell got out the way for him before his last-lap crash.
At Suzuka on Sunday, we were treated to some great wheel-to-wheel action from the Merc boys, though it did get a tad heated at points.
On Lap 6 we saw Lewis take P7 from George at Turn 1, coming nail-bitingly close to race-ending contact.
Ten laps later, we saw Hamilton run wide at Degner 2, which gave Russell just behind the opportunity to attempt a pass at Spoon Curve, only to be run off onto the green stuff and kept behind.
Image: Formula One
