Max and RedBull reestablish their dominance
Last Sunday , in the beautiful night setting of the Marina Bay in Singapore, Max Verstappen's 10 race winning streak had been halted by a variety of combinations , but the biggest factor being that the RB19 just wasn't suited to Singapore. Some people were quick to question the new Technical Directive had slowed down RedBull , but right from the first lap in free practise 1, he laid down the gauntlet and did not relinquish his control over . He topped all the practise sessions , got pole position and won the race, the first time since the 2015 Italian Grand Prix that someone has topped all the sessions in a weekend. His pole lap was mighty impressive , he was at one with the car through the famous esses at the Suzuka circuit and in the end got pole position by nearly 6 tenths of a second while his team mate was languishing down in P5, 8 tenths off pole. Sunday was a comfortable day for him except the start where the two Mclarens beared down on him but Max held his cool to keep the lead, only relinquishing it during the pitstop phases and in the end winning by 19 seconds and gave RedBull Racing their 6th Constructors Championship and their second in a row.
Mclaren continue their resurgence
Mclaren were expected to excel at Suzuka with the large number of high speed corners at Japan suiting their car and they made full use of it. Piastri started off the weekend slowly driving for the first time at this track but he was upto grips with it come qualifying and outqualified Lando Norris for only the 4th time this season. At the start both Mclarens attacked Max going into the first corner but the Dutchman got his elbows out to keep the lead of the race while Lando slotted into P2. Oscar briefly took P2 from Lando when he pitted under the VSC, but Lando was faster and Oscar let him through. It was Mclaren's first double podium since Monza 2021 and their first at Japan since 2011. P4 in the constructors championship surely looks achievable for the Woking based team. Qatar also seems to be a track which should suit their car . Could we see Lando Norris win his first race at the Lusail Circuit?
Tokyo Drift at Suzuka?
The opening laps of the race saw some appalling driving from a few drivers. Bottas just went into Albon giving both of them damage and even his teammate Zhou Guanyu got collateral damage from that incident .
Perez tangled with Hamilton and broke his front wing. Then when trying to recover from that , he made an move which can be described in kind words as over ambitious late divebomb on Kevin Magnussen into the hairpin and got damage and RedBull retired his car and then brought it out later in the race so he could serve his 5 second penalty for that Magnussen clash. Logan Sargeant also made a similiar clumsy move on Bottas at the same spot and spun Bottas out of the race and caused his car terminal damage
Tension at Mercedes?
Mercedes knew that Japan would be one of their worser tracks on the calendar. They qualified on the 4th row of the grid with Hamilton outqualifying Russell for the first time since Belgium. Hamilton lost places at the start and at the Safety Car restart on lap 5 , Russell went for the move on Hamilton at the chicane like Senna did on Prost in 1989 , Hamilton gave him enough space and then got Russell going into T1. On the next lap Hamilton took a wider line into the Spoon Curve forcing Russell off track.
Mercedes had seen enough and switched Russell to a 1 stop strategy, But this meant late in the race as Hamilton and Sainz in the Ferrari caught upto Russell, Russell wanted Hamilton to act as a wall between Sainz and Russell so the team could maximise points, however the team told George to let Lewis through and Sainz easily passed Russell on the next lap, which meant Ferrari gained 4 points on Mercedes. The debrief at Mercedes would have been tense.
In the end it was a very entertaining Japanese Grand Prix with a lot of action, overtakes and drama and it was one of the better races of this season. Next up we head to Qatar at the Lusail Circuit. It is gonna be a sprint weekend and we could see Max Verstappen being crowned champion on Saturday, the first time that has happened since 1987.
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