What to expect from the 2018 Japanese F1 GP?
I'm glad I didn't do a bet on Valtteri Bottas winning the race in Russia last Sunday...
For sure it was a smart move for Mercedes to do a team order to extend Lewis Hamilton's lead on Sebastian Vettel in the drivers title with an additional 7 points, but from a fan point of view it's really hard to comprehend.
Will Lewis Hamilton win again in Suzuka and extend his lead even more? Chances are big he will. His confidence will be super high. Especially because he also won last years edition of the Japanese Grand Prix.
Ferrari brought a lot of updates to Sochi last weekend. Looking at there performance the updates made the SF71H slower compared to the Mercedes. Today the news got out that the Ferrari has slowed down since the FIA has installed sensors inside the car in Singapore to check if Ferrari is cheating. Hopefully for us fans the updates will start to work in Japan. Otherwise we will see the same podium until Hamilton has mathematically won the season and will give back a win to Bottas.
Next stop is the 34th Japanese Grand Prix held on the popular Suzuka race course. What to expect from the 2018 Japanese F1 GP?
2018 Japanese GP facts & Figures
The first Japanese F1 Grand Prix was held 42 years ago in 1976 on the Fuji Speedway. This first race was won by Mario Andretti in a Lotus. The Japanese F1 GP was held 4 times on the Fuji Speedway. The most Formula 1 races are held on the legendary Suzuka circuit. This year it's the 30th edition.
Out of all drivers that won in Japan, Michael Schumacher won the most races. The 7 times WC won a total of six Grand Prix in Japan. From the current F1 drivers Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel won the most races. They won 4 Grand Prix, Fernando Alonso got 2 and Kimi Raikkonen earned one victory in Japan.
With 7 podium finishes Vettel scored the most podiums out of the current drivers in Japan. He also scored the most pole positions there. With 4 poles he has one more than Hamilton.
The team victories in Japan look very different. It might come as a surprise when you look at their current performance, but McLaren has won the most Japanese F1 races. They have won 9 editions. Ferrari comes 2nd with 7, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes both won 4, Williams 3 and Renault won 2 times in Japan.
Suzuka Race Course
The Suzuka circuit is a closed circuit and very popular with the drivers. The twisted circuit has a lot elevation changes and high speed turns that are very technical & demanding. It's a so called old school narrow circuit and has a characteristic 8 shape.
The Suzuka track is driven clockwise and has 18 turns, 10 right-hand and 8 left-hand corners. There are a few difficult turns on Suzuka. Turn 13-14 (Spoon) is actually 1 corner with 2 apexes. Braking for turn 16 is also very difficult.
The fastest corner is turn 15 (130R). Cars go around 320 km/h there. The slowest turn is turn 11, the cars drive through this turn with a speed of 95 km/h.
The track has only 1 DRS zone. This zone is situated on the start/finish straight. Suzuka has 3 overtaking spots. Last year we saw Max Verstappen passing Sebastian Vettel at turn 11 in the first lap. Other overtaking spots are the braking zone of turn 16 and the main straight DRS zone.
The official lap record in Suzuka is 1:31.540 min and is set by Kimi Raikkonen when he still was driving for McLaren in 2005. Last year Hamilton broke the quickest qualifying lap time and improved it to 1:27.319 min. Will he break the lap record this time also?
2018 Japanese Grand Prix Infographic
What happened in last years 2017 Japanese F1 GP?
2017 Japanese GP podium: 1. Hamlton 2. Verstappen 3. Ricciardo
In last year’s Japanese Grand Prix we saw Lewis Hamilton almost lead the race from start to finish. We saw Carlos Sainz crash out of his last race for Toro Rosso in turn 1 of the race.
We again some great passing manoeuvres of Max Verstappen. In lap 1 he overtook his teammate Daniel Ricciardo and Sebastian Vettel.
After a few laps Vettel was asked to retire his car with the famous spark plug issue. This was were he lost the drivers title.
In the last part of the race Lance Stroll had a tyre failure in the SS-es and caused a safety car period in lap 45. After the safety car period ended Hamilton had a lot of vibrations coming from his tyres and had trouble getting up to speed. Verstappen gave it all he had left in his RB13, but came to short to get the race win and finished only 1 second behind the Mercedes driver.
Last year, a one-stopper proved to be the winning strategy (partly influenced by a safety car and virtual safety car: not uncommon in Japan).
Japanese F1 GP 2018 Tyres
Pirelli has nominated the Medium, Soft and Supersoft (with this specific combination already selected four times already this season). This is to cope with the notoriously high-energy demands of Suzuka, with long and sweeping corners such as 130R and Spoon.
Teams tend to run high downforce, pushing down on the tyres, in order to maximise grip. This means that the tyres are subjected to multi-directional forces at the same time.
In fact, the cars are almost constantly cornering at Suzuka, with a relentless flow that makes the historic Japanese circuit one of the most-loved on the entire calendar.
Although the tyre selection is nominally the same as last year, in reality it’s a step softer as all the compounds are one step softer compared to their 2017 equivalents.
Wear and degradation is traditionally high: some of the biggest energy loads of the year
are put through the tyres.
Selected sets for the 2018 Japanese F1 GP
Japanese GP Weather Forecast
The weather is often unpredictable at this time of year, with frequent rain: one of the factors that make track evolution quite hard to forecast
This weekends forecast looks to be very interesting. Friday will be cloudy and quite wet. Friday morning looks to be dry. But around noon the sky's will open up for rain showers. The highest temperature is around 22ºC and precipitation chance of 70%.
On Saturday also will be cloudy and a change of thunderstorms with rain that will fall down on the Suzuka circuit, but with a temperature of 26ºC a lot warmer than Friday.
Race day Sunday looks to be dry and sunny, but there still will be a precipitation chance of 30%. With 27ºC It's quite warm in Japan.
Who will be on the 2018 Japanese F1 GP podium?
Hamilton, Vettel & Verstappen
Last 2 races showed that Ferrari lost their pace. Red Bull even has gained on Ferrari's pace.
Unless some miracle happens, Mercedes with Hamilton seems to be unbeatable for now. We saw an almost identical situation last season. Ferrari lost pace to Mercedes and Red Bull gained speed. Verstappen even won in Malaysia and Mexico and scored 2nd place in Japan.
Pole position isn’t very important to win on Suzuka. In last 29 grands prix the pole sitter has won 13 times, while the driver on 2nd position on the grid scored a victory 12 times. The race is never won from P3 on the grid.
Hamilton is able to score his 80th pole position in Japan and will be extra motivated to get it. If he does he will have even 12 more pole positions than Schumacher who has the second most pole positions.
Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen always perform good around here. Hamilton finished 4 out of 5 earlier races on the podium driving for Mercedes and if nothing strange happens he will be on the podium for sure. Last race in Sochi Hamilton told his team over the radio he felt hesitations coming from his power unit...
Valtteri Bottas will still have a hangover from last weeks team order in Russia and might be less motivated on the circuit that doesn't seem to suit him.
Sebastian Vettel only scored 1 podium (3rd in 2015) since he wears a red race suit and certainly after last years debacle, Ferrari will be extra keen to score a good result in the land of the rising sun. So the pressure is on for the guys in red, Raikkonen & Vettel.
Both Red Bull drivers Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo, will be extra motivated by the slower pace of the Ferrari. Last weekend Ricciardo told reporters he almost forgot how champagne tastes and will go on the hunt for some. Since Verstappen is driving for Red Bull (Spain 2016) he finished 2nd in both races he drove there. I looks like Suzuka is one of Verstappen's favourite tracks and bound to get another podium.
According to our analyses we predict the following podium:
1. Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes), 2. Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari), 3. Max Verstappen (Red Bull)
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I think Max would push hard to get ahead of Bottas and go after Hamilton and of course Seb will need to figure out how to progress towards the front and it will be a real battle as those in front of him will not give up positions easily. I expect it to be a great race full of twists and excitement.
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