September 28, 2023
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| wtf1.com |
Our Asian double header came to an end with the Japanese Grand Prix. With a very favorable outcome for my McLarens and answers to many of the questions we had going into the weekend, the race didn’t disappoint. Here is your 2023 Japanese Grand Prix Weekend Recap:
Free-Practice: September 22-23, 2023
Times from Friday’s practice sessions were not exactly representative of teams’ performance because drivers were testing a prototype version of the C2 tire for next season. Nevertheless, Max Verstappen topped every session and Lando Norris consistently put his McLaren in the top three. Norris’s teammate Oscar Piastri also performed well, finishing each practice in the top 10. The Ferraris were up there, with both drivers going as high as P2 in two different sessions, but Mercedes had a rough start to the weekend as they failed to get both cars in the top ten on Friday. However, they seemed to get their act together by Saturday and Lewis Hamilton and George Russell went P7 and P8, respectively. AlphaTauri had some mixed signals after their cars went P5 and P9 in FP1, but dropped to P14 and P17 by FP3. Their upgrades seemed to work in Singapore, but perhaps they aren’t suited to the Japanese circuit. Unfortunately Alpine looked like it was in the same position, with both drivers consistently at the back of the grid and Pierre Gasly even bringing out a Red Flag toward the end of FP2.
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| Gasly in the barrier at the end of FP2 formula1.com |
Qualifying: September 23, 2023
Q1:
- Max Verstappen and Lando Norris both pulled off what I like to call, the “one-lap wonder”.
- Eliminated: Bottas (P16), Stroll (P17), Hulkenberg (P18), Zhou (P19), Sargeant (P20).
- Sargeant took a heavy hit when he lost control out of the final corner and slammed into the barriers. In a weekend where he is still trying to save his seat, this isn’t what the American needed.
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| Sargeant's big Qualifying shunt mirror.co.uk |
Q2:
- Eliminated: Lawson (P11), Gasly (P12), Albon (P13), Ocon (P14), Magnussen (P15)
- Lawson lost out to Alonso by less than half a second.
Q3:
- Verstappen secured pole with an over half a second lead on Piastri and Norris in P2 and P3, respectively.
- In a testament to Verstappen’s impressive lap time, Perez qualified P5 but almost a full second slower than his teammate.
- Yuki Tsunoda qualified P9 for his home race!
Race: September 24, 2023
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| @takagixu Reddit |
According to race specifications, the repair job Logan Sargeant’s car required after his Q1 crash resulted in the team “building a new car”. Since teams are only allowed to use two cars per event, Sargeant was handed a 10-second time penalty and relegated to a pit-lane start.
The start saw Verstappen come under attack from both McLarens, who came at him from both sides. Verstappen managed to hold his lead into Turn 1 as Norris took P2 from his teammate.
Behind the scrap for first, Ocon, Zhou, Bottas, and Albon all tagged one another, sending Albon airborne at one point. The four pitted for repairs and due to the amount of debris on the track, a Safety Car was brought out.
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| Albon's Williams (top left) went airborne as he came under pressure from cars around him skysports.com |
Perez, having made contact with Hamilton on Lap 1, pitted for a new front wing under the Safety Car. Unfortunately for him, the stop put him at the back of the grid and resulted in a 5-second penalty for a Safety Car infringement. On Lap 4, the Safety Car period ended and Perez was free to start making up places.
A few laps later, Sargeant’s weekend went from bad to worse when he picked up a 5-second penalty for causing a collision that forced Bottas to retire from the race.
In a similar incident, Perez locked up and hit Magnussen, sending the Dane into a spin. Perez pitted for yet another front wing before picking up one more 5-second penalty. A Virtual Safety Car was called on Lap 13 and a few laps later, Perez retired from the race due to the amount of damage he had sustained.
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| Perez tagged Magnussen planetf1.com |
On Lap 12, Alonso became the first of the front runners to pit. One lap later, Piastri got a cheap stop as he pitted for Hards just as a VSC was called. Verstappen and Norris pitted for Mediums soon after and Verstappen kept his lead while Norris came out in P4, behind his teammate. Russell, staying out on his Mediums, was up to P2 after the first round of pit stops.
Around Lap 25, Lance Stroll became the third retiree of the race due to rear wing failure as his teammate Alonso criticized the team’s strategy, saying he has been “thrown to the lions” because of his early pitstop. At the same time, Russell finally swapped his old Mediums for Hards and came out in P9.
Williams then gave us a fourth and fifth retirements of the race as both cars stopped because of damage they had picked in collisions.
Lap 35 saw the start of a second round of pit stops, with Leclerc, Hamilton, and Piastri all pitting for hards. Norris and Verstappen followed in suit while Sainz and Russell stayed out, trying to extend their stints.
Meanwhile, in an odd turn of events, Red Bull sent Perez back out into the race to complete his penalties. According to the rules, if a driver retires from a race before serving their penalties, the stewards can penalize them with a grid-penalty in the next race. To avoid any possible penalties in Qatar, Perez went out for one lap, pitted to serve his penalty, and then retired again. In my opinion, it seems like a useless rule because the purpose of Perez’s penalty was lost when he “served” it.
It quickly became evident that the one-stop was the wrong call as Russell lost out to those who had fresher tires. By Lap 49, the team swapped Russell and Hamilton’s positions to avoid Sainz overtaking both Mercedes. Ahead in P5, Hamilton dropped back to give Russell DRS and aid in his defense against Sainz. Unfortunately for Russell, Hamilton didn’t hold back for long and the moment Russell fell out of DRS range, Sainz was there to take the position.
Verstappen ultimately won the race by 20 seconds, bringing home enough points to crown Red Bull the 2023 Constructors Champions. Even though Perez had retired and scored no points, they had enough of a lead that Verstappen's 25 secured their sixth constructors trophy.
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| Red Bull won the Constructors Trophy! formula1.com |
The McLarens made it a double podium, and a first for Piastri, as Norris and the Aussie went P2 and P3 respectively. After coming close a number of times this season, it was great to see Piastri finally get that podium in his rookie season. Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc led the rest of the pack from P4 as Hamilton, Sainz, Russell, Alonso, Ocon, and Gasly rounded out the points behind him. The Alpines were definitely pleased with both drivers in the points after a tough few weekends.
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| Lando Norris helping Oscar Piastri celebrate his maiden F1 podium. formula1.com |
AlphaTauri just nearly missed out on points as Lawson and Tsunoda went P11 and P12. Though, I think the fact that AlphaTauri can be sad about that result speaks volumes about their development this season.
Honorable (but not really respectable) mention:
- Liam Lawson did not get the 2024 seat at AlphaTauri. I know, it is an atrocity. On Saturday morning, before Qualifying, the team announced Yuki Tsunoda and Daniel Ricciardo as their lineup for 2024 with Lawson as their reserve driver. However, since Perez’s contract is up at the end of the 2024 season and there’s talk of Red Bull replacing him, I think Red Bull is going to use 2024 to decide if Tsunoda or Ricciardo should replace Perez and have Lawson fill that empty seat at AlphaTauri in 2025. I guess we’ll find out if I am right in a year!
Suzuka was classic Suzuka with its 5 DNFs and multiple crashes. It was a pretty solid weekend with Red Bull’s securing the Constructors Championship and McLaren getting that double podium. Verstappen is also now on track to win the Championship in Qatar’s Sprint Race, so I guess we’ll have to wait and see!
I will be back next week to get you guys ready for the Qatar Grand Prix.
- Divya
Where I got these
from:
- https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2023/races/1220/japan/practice-1.html
- https://formula1.com/en/latest/article.fp1-verstappen-comfortably-heads-sainz-and-norris-in-opening-practice.6LwL05pMlsMH7o3kJSMQ4C.html
- https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2023/races/1220/japan/practice-2.html
- https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.fp2-verstappen-leads-leclerc-and-norris-to-stay-on-top-during-second.KYBWB6IZubATzdrM8xw9P.html
- https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2023/races/1220/japan/practice-3.html
- https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.verstappen-and-red-bull-return-to-form-as-they-charge-to-pole-ahead-of-the.hO0o0HqmH7UR09UtmMuDl.html
- https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2023/races/1220/japan/qualifying.html
- https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.verstappen-dominates-for-japanese-gp-victory-as-red-bull-secure-back-to-back.6nJ1rDkiGByJw6nypqVPO6.html
- https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.official-grid-who-starts-where-in-japan-as-sargeant-is-penalised-for-new-car.X4qn5ydpjjHBscTrUrMwn.html
- https://www.williamsf1.com/posts/a62765f2-6ed8-458d-a204-9a37cbfff4a5/report-2023-japanese-grand-prix
- https://www.gpblog.com/en/news/239818/why-did-red-bull-send-perez-back-onto-the-track-in-japan.html
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPLxuLE62gI
- https://storage.googleapis.com/wtf1-com.appspot.com/1/XPB_1014971_HiRes-scaled-e1619266674332.jpg
- https://d2n9h2wits23hf.cloudfront.net/image/v1/static/6057949432001/85b3b9d7-33b9-46c5-b920-484ec45e8d4c/740e21f7-6c4f-4741-bf69-5ea5ad767120/658x370/match/image.jpg
- https://i2-prod.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article31008865.ece/ALTERNATES/n615/0_F6sHYTMWIAATZEyjfif.jpg
- https://e0.365dm.com/23/09/800x600/skysports-albon-japan_6296187.jpg
- https://preview.redd.it/2023-japanese-grand-prix-race-classification-v0-94xw4ordh5qb1.jpg?auto=webp&s=cec62cac8696c8bef1f78050c9a72472d31ef865
- https://media.formula1.com/image/upload/f_auto/q_auto/v1695542996/fom-website/2023/Japan/norris-piastri-podium-suzuka-2023.png.transform/9col/image.png
- https://media.formula1.com/image/upload/f_auto/q_auto/v1695540692/fom-website/2023/Japan/verstappen-red-bull-team-suzuka-2023.png
- https://media.formula1.com/image/upload/f_auto/q_auto/v1695542996/fom-website/2023/Japan/norris-piastri-podium-suzuka-2023.png.transform/9col/image.png