Grand Prix 2018 Japanese Grand Prix Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

After a fairly soporific Russian GP the circus moves nearly 7,000 miles (by road according to Bing maps) to Suzuka in Japan. The Japanese have a love affair with the automobile and Japanese car companies make up 4 of the top 15 car manufacturers in the world with Toyota top of the list, just above VW.

Japan also has a long association with Formula One. Many Japanese manufacturers have made cars and engines which have raced in F1, with varying degrees of success. Honda prepared a car and engine in the 60’s and Richie Ginther won the Mexican GP in 1965. They had further success in 1968 when John Surtees won the Italian GP but the team withdrew from racing after the death of Jo Schlesser in a car with a magnesium chassis caught fire quite horrifically.

Honda came back as an engine supplier in the 80’s and pretty much wiped the floor with everyone with their motor bolted in the back of the Williams and McLaren chassis. Yamaha and Subaru have made engines and Toyota and Honda coupled their motors to their own chassis in the early 2000’s, albeit with little success (I just remembered Button's win in Hungary with the Honda engine - sorry Jenson fans, what a lovely day that was)

I don’t think I need to remind anyone of the Honda’s latest foray into the world of F1 engine supply.

Japan has also supplied the grid with 20 drivers. The first was Hiroshi Fushido in 1975 with the Japanese made Maki chassis coupled to the inevitable Cosworth DFV. The most successful Japanese F1 driver is Kamui Kobayashi who amassed 125 points in his career as well as taking a podium in Japan for Sauber in 2012 and fastest lap in the same year in China. Two other Japanese drivers have stood on the podium, Takumo Sato at Indianapolis in 2004, the Michelin tyre debacle, and Aguri Suzuki for Larousse in Japan in 1990, the one with the infamous crash between Prost and Senna at the first corner.

So what of the race itself? Lewis Hamilton goes in to the final phase of events with a healthy lead in the Championship and Mercedes showed in Russia that they will do anything to ensure that their man takes the drivers title. The constructor’s title is already pretty much nailed on for the Stuttgart team so expect team orders to come in to play if Lewis finds himself behind Valterri Bottas at any point during the race.

What of the rest? Ferrari looks to have peaked before the summer break and are now on their way down. Red Bull may well figure close to the front but I doubt they can beat the Mercedes. Back in division 2 we should see some racing between Hass, Force India and the Sauber of Le Clerc which might compensate a little for the Silver Arrows running away at the front.

It will be an early start with Qualifying at 7:00 a.m. on Saturday and the race starting at 6:10 in the morning on Sunday but at least you will have the rest of the day to something after the inevitable Mercedes 1-2.
 
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Do you know who Vettel reminds me off currently Damon Hill. I have great respect for Damon because he made teams better than they are so before I get shot down here are my reasons

I am liking this season very much to 1995 Schumacher/Benetton vs Hill / Williams with Hamilton/Mercedes the former and Vettel the latter

It seems very mirrored in that both Williams and Ferrari were the superior cars for most of the season but the drivers could not capitalise to build a lead which lets in their rival . Hamilton like Schumacher just keeps slowly chipping away extending his lead and putting in breathtaking performances that are simply awesome.

The other ironies - both Hill and Vettel went off at Hockenheim leading the race comfortably and both are not enjoying fully backed support from their team despite their No 1 status. Both their teams suffered from poor management and strategy management

Finally people always said Hill was great when the car was dominant and he looked good way out in front but as soon as he has to race behind and overtake slower cars he is not as convincing . It seems people are questioning Vettel ability to race wheel to wheel
 
Publius Cornelius Scipio

I think this article sums it up from the Guardian's Richard Williams about Lack of Expert Leadership at Ferrari has not helped Sebastian Vettel

Lack of expert leadership at Ferrari has not helped Sebastian Vettel | Richard Williams

Any assessment of Ferrari’s late-season slump must be seen against the background of the sudden death of their chairman and chief executive, Sergio Marchionne, in July. His replacement as chairman is John Elkann, the boss of Fiat and grandson of Gianni Agnelli. Elkann does at least have Ferrari blood in his veins.

The man with the day-to-day responsibility is the new chief executive, Louis Camilleri, who had previously spent 40 years with the Philip Morris cigarette company. This is no coincidence, since Philip Morris has been the team’s most significant sponsor since 1973, and Camilleri was already on Ferrari’s board. Reporting to him is Maurizio Arrivabene, a former Philip Morris marketing executive handling the commercial relationship between the two companies and became the team principal in 2014.

So now the Scuderia is being run by two men with a background in selling cigarettes, whose former employer maintained a deep relationship with the team despite a ban on tobacco advertising in F1 which came into effect – belatedly overcoming intense lobbying by the interested parties – in 2007. Their Marlboro brand was the team’s title sponsor, so influential that at one point the famous Ferrari red changed hue to match that of the cigarette packet. After the ban, a giant barcode resembling the word Marlboro and then a white chevron against the red background on the cars’ engine covers sent subliminal reminders of the tobacco company’s message.
 
The problem for Arrivabene is that when he looks along the pit wall at the men managing the other top teams – at Mercedes’ Toto Wolff, Red Bull’s Christian Horner and Helmut Marko, and others – he sees rivals with a background in racing rather than marketing. It may be no accident that the team’s last period of sustained success occurred when the running of Michael Schumacher’s car was being overseen by such men: a bunch of proper racers.

At Mercedes, Wolff recognises that Hamilton has a complicated temperament and works hard to get the best from his No 1 driver. Neither Arrivabene, Camilleri nor anyone else at Ferrari has the background that would enable them to give constructive advice to their own four-time world champion, or to supervise the finer points of race strategy. And on that factor, perhaps, hangs the destiny of this year’s title.

It does appear that way very much
 
Sorry Ruslan I have to completely disagree with you on this one. It wasn't about the points at this stage it was about being in a position to beat and push your rival no matter how superior you think their car is. Sitting behind Verstappen was only going to let Hamilton get comfortable and cruise. If Vettel had got as near to him as possible as quickly as possible then it was always going to be an extra pressure on Hamilton. 9 times out of 10 it will come to nothing but you have to do what you can. It's the difference between real competitors and also rans.

I can in noway argue that the execution was correct but the tactical thinking was sound.
 
given the speed and Verstappen was out of battery then the long straight down to the chicane would have been a better place to pass Verstappen

Anyway I am surprised Verstappen only got 1 penalty point for his shove on Raikkonen. I do think if Max was banned for 1 race it might tell him to watch it next time and the same goes for Magnussen who Le Clerc branded " He will and always be stupid !"
 
Il_leone very interesting. I think that the similarities between Vettel and Hill (a driver which I truly admired in his days) are not limited to what you described but also how they go about their racing. I remember when Hill was in F3000 and I was struggling doing my bits I saw him on a couple of occasions at the start of some races take the lead and try to go on the outside of the first corner not to slam the door in front of his opponents, in a sense he was trying to be quick and not to slow down the others (I'd say that the difference between such two attitudes is massive) and I was very impressed, I though that I would do the same (my competitors didn't agree...). In a sense Vettel reminds me of that approach, he is trying to beat "the system" on his own and using what he sees as fair means. Maybe Vettel should have looked at those old F3000 races because if I remember correctly Hill went out and didn't win.

I know that most people think Vettel a very unfair driver but I disagree, I think that he's one of the few who makes an effort, if you compare Vettel's behaviour at an SC restart with Hamilton's the differences are huge: Vettel (like most other drivers) will try to gain an advantage if he's in the lead, Hamilton will try to get an advantage by putting the others in a difficult/dangerous situation, and to corroborate my claim you just have to look at what Hamilton did at Baku, that was quite simply dangerous. Vettel is someone who comes across as try to win by being the best, Hamilton doesn't care at all how he wins, winning is more important, I always think that Vettel is at Ferrari to try and do a Schumacher, build up the team around him and lead them to victory, the point is that this is not simple and maybe we should accept that Schumacher was more than a fast driver but also a very smart guy who knew how to build a team around him
 
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I think someone should ask FiA why Verstappen is not sitting next race out, so he can cool down? Taking two red cars out in one race is not enough for them, so what is? Take a critical look on Verstappen's driving style since he was appointed to RBR seat, and one has to be blind not to detect pattern of behavior which crossed a few red lines with blame being re-directed elsewhere from the popular wonder-boy. I am waiting when Max will be nominated for SCOTUS as a special case to get things going there.

- Flight of an angel.
 
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Hamilton like Schumacher just keeps slowly chipping away extending his lead and putting in breathtaking performances that are simply awesome.

Like Schumacher, he has the car to put in those performances, lap times like those in Singapore aren't only a result of a gifted driver nor a race win by +40 sec.. That is what I meant earlier in the season, as soon as Vettel is on top of Hamilton, it's the car, if it's the other way around it's the driver.
The Ferrari has been hyped for no reason and their poor form since Monza has shown that it was not anything Mercedes had to fear or utterly dominant.
 
I always think that Vettel is at Ferrari to try and do a Schumacher, build up the team around him and lead them to victory, the point is that this is not simple and maybe we should accept that Schumacher was more than a fast driver but also a very smart guy who knew how to build a team around him
Schumacher didn't build the team around, he had people like Todt and Brawn coordinating all aspects of the team and highly talented staff such as Byrne. They also went testing like no other team which gave them a huge advantage something that teams can't do nowadays.
If it weren't for the engine advantage Ferrari and Mercedes have over Renault and Honda, I think that Red Bull would have won most titles in the past few years because they have better staff than any other team on the grid.
 
Clay you have a point, even though if you speak to most people who worked for Ferrari during that era they will all agree that Schumacher was pivotal in building up the team, especially in terms of technical direction, he was the guy who clearly said what he wanted and took the engineers "by the hand" and led them where he wanted to get, the current drivers are in one case not much bothered and with not a very forthcoming attitude and the other one follows what the engineers tell him. A school friend of mine worked for Ferrari during the Schumacher era as well as after that and he says that the difference is huge, my friend is a very academic guy and he rates people on the basis of what he perceives their brainpower to be and he always said that even though Schumacher had no academic qualification in his opinion he was a genius. He also always said that alough he rated Schumacher as a very good driver he was not on a different level from his peers in pure driving terms but his brainpower put him on a different level.

Regarding Red Bull I'm not sure that they have better staff than the others but they have Adrian Newey. In terms of staff I think that Force India is quite impressive given what they achieve despite their woes and their budget
 
Publius Cornelius Scipio I suppose you’re right. Schumacher’s work ethic was also extraordinary and that set him apart from his brother and Heinz Harald Frentzen who were considered more talented than him when it came to driving ability.

I was only talking about the top three teams. Otherwise I agree Force India, or whatever their current name is, is amazing on a points per $ ratio.
 
Clay

Don't forget that both Byrne and Brawn knew they were on to a winning driver and followed Schumacher from Benetton to Ferrari. It was not coincidence that they all moved to the Red Menace at the same time.
 
Clay What I find amazing about Schumacher is the fact that he could change the angle of attack of a corner even 3 times, normally you commit and take that line, he could change it without losing any time, if I were driving a corner I would be thinking of the next one to get the car in the right position for it, he had the ability to divide each part of the track into many small sections and do several actions at the same time. My friend says that his multitasking was amazing and that his radio messages were always so precise and detailed that at times they could hardly keep up with him. I think that it's also fair to remember that he was the first driver to fully take advantage of the changing brake bias or diff settings, he used to change such settings at most corners, now we think that it's easy because they have a program on the steering wheel with all the changes already set for each corner but before digitalisation it wasn't a walk in the park, in order to change brake bias you used to operate a lever with no set positions, I'm amazed that he managed to get it right and that he had the ability to think while he was driving at how to operate that lever. In my days I adjusted the brake bias only (a handful of times) if I had some issues with my tyres, I would never touch that things for fear of getting things wrong, and I was among the smart guys who had the sense to change the settings when things weren't quite right.

I think that people easily underestimate such achievements.

In pure driving terms I think that other drivers were slightly better, you refer to HH and the story that used to go round regarding the 4 Mercedes junior drivers was that Schumacher was a great racer, HH was very fast, Wendlinger was both a great racer and a great driver, and then there was Fritz (Kreuzpointner)...
 
Schumacher is - by trade - a car mechanic. How often we heard stories about him at 3 am working with mechanics on his car, helping out with assembly. Maybe it meant little in terms of building a team around him, but surely he let them feel that he was one of them. Today the same is almost impossible just on grounds of equipment complexity.
 
Have a look on their respective positions, and explain why is no one questioning Verstappen that he should have yielded to Ferrari. Vettel is next to RB, Max is not yielding, and all what transpired after felt onto Vettel's head. I am lost.
vettel-verstappen.jpg

vettel-verstappen.jpg
 
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Because max is an idiot who subscribes wholly to the collision rather than being overtaken approach of "racing".

It's sad, but for all the mistakes Vettel made this season, his only one there was slinging one up the inside of a driver who is a bit "crashy"

*Edit: I know there is some forshortening in the image and Vettel was not fully alongside, but Verstappen could've and should've raced him, rather than just turning in
 
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If memory serves me, there used to be (unwritten?) rule defined by Whiting, that a car is being considered physically in overtaking position when front axel is in alignment with a rear wheel of the leading car. Vettel seems to be at least that advanced position, which placed obligation on Verstappen to cooperate, and leave space.
I do consider totally inappropriate comment from Horner that Seb should have known better that Verstappen will never yield. If so, at that case FiA should have stepped in, and bench him, rinse and repeat as many times as needed, and until Max will get the message, and behave.
 
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Verstappen needs to know he is close to getting banned if he keeps this up and the same goes for Magnussen. We want to see wheel to wheel racing but not these dangerous brake tests or disregard for the other day and tip him into a wall or barrier attitude
 
Clay This season more than not for once Ferrari have the fastest car certainly up to Monza but Vettel just has not capitalised

Schumacher beat Hill in 1995 but it had to be said generally though the Williams Renault was a better car than the Benetton Renault certainly the qualifying records showed that. Schumacher though had a great work ethic and with Brawn went out about meticulously planning the race strategy which was fast over the whole race. It just dumbfounded Williams how they were getting beaten time and time again
 
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