Grand Prix 2019 Japanese Grand Prix Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion.

Onward to Suzuka and the Japanese GP. Yakult anyone? Let’s hope that it’s more entertaining than the Russian GP, which excelled at only one thing, being dull.
Suzuka is built as the central attraction of Motopia a motoring and engineering theme park. Which really sums up F1 in 2019.
Michael Schumacher had six wins at Suzuka, and Lewis Hamilton has had five so far, will he win here and match Schumacher or will Ferrari get their act together and get another one / two. After Singapore I would have put money on Ferrari taking the win, in fact I think I did, but after Sochi I think that Hamilton will draw level with Schumacher. Although we mustn’t overlook Verstappen, this is a Honda track, it was built for them as a test track, and Verstappen is in a Honda powered Red Bull. Honda and the Japanese fans would love a home win, add those two facts together and Verstappen and his car might sprout wings.
Suzuka, from the drivers viewpoint, is quite a complex track, with its figure of eight configuration and cool crossover, slow hairpin bends, the uphill Esses a series of curves which if driven badly will lose the driver a bucket load of time, and then some flat out sections like 130 R. Plenty of scope for drivers to get it wrong, and cars and their engines to take a hammering. How do you set up a car for a track like this one. Red Bull of course had new engines at Sochi, Honda giving themselves the best possible chance to do well in Suzuka. The teams at the back end of the grid can be expected to struggle and a few to fall by the wayside. Although the days of just 9 or 10 cars getting to the end of a race seem to have gone.

The weather in Japan is Autumnal and there have been a few really wet races here, well certainly wet Qualifying sessions, with the occasional Sunday Qualifying followed by the race, there was even a Typhoon on race weekend back in 2004. All of which makes a tricky track, even trickier, but it also mixes up the grid quite nicely.
Anyway hopefully this track will deliver an interesting and entertaining race or at the very least a rain storm.
Enjoy.

Interesting Facts.
Honda have only ever won twice here
Kimi Räikkönen won this race from 17th position in 2005
Typhoons are common in this location
Lewis now has 322 points
Bottas has 249
Leclerc has 215
 
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Bianchi drove too fast under yellow flags, the other 20 drivers kept it on track. It's also not Todt's fault that the tractor was within the bounds of the racing track although it should have been behind the barrier.
Well, there was at least one driver before Bianchi who lost control of his car in that race. True, it doesn't happens too often, however it is obvious if it happens to one driver, the same locale conditions can contribute for other cars lose it as well. Bianchi, unfortunately, was "the other" car. The idea to bring a SC in and slow them down was unfortunately completely out of synch with actual events. If a driver is not responsible and keeps his speed up, VSC controlled (electronically imposed) by a third party perhaps would have prevented...
 
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F1 had raced in similar conditions before and nothing had happened. It was a freak accident and should be accepted as such. There is no need to cancel rain affected races. Tractors do not belong on F1 tracks.

i agree we shouldn't cancel rain races as theyve gone too far wrong way we almost race in fully wet conditions. they wait for inters under safety car now. F1 had raced in similar conditions before and nothing had happened. 1976 & 1994 are 2 but it doesn't make it right maybe they got lucky that day that we missed 20 & 38 yrs later. it was freak accident but theres so many factors it was preventable. at 3pm local time the visibility was dreadful & didnt get the 4 hr window we barely had 3 hrs it was so gloomy. why it should have started at 11am when the rain was correctly forecasted to be brighter & lighter rain

tractors spot on at they should never been on a track under racing conditions. if ever & haunting commentary from martin brundle in hockenheim 2000. where he says someone will get killed by a tractor
 
Toro Rosso to field Yamamoto in free practice


Had to double take on this as I thought they meant Sakon Yamamoto and I was about to fall off my chair but no they mean the Yamamoto who is reigning super gt champ.
 
Latest weather snippet from the BBC:

Super Typhoon Hagibis is looking set to approach western Japan by Saturday. Although the exact track is uncertain and some weakening is expected on reaching Japan, the risk of direct impacts at Suzuka this weekend from both rain and wind do look increasingly concerning.
 
One of the very few races that is on at a sane time to watch here down under. Unfortunately it seems to always clash with the biggest race of the year for our V8 supercars championship, the Bathurst 1000km race.
Looks like it will be a reply again for me.
 
Do you think they've ever considered moving the Japanese Grand Prix to April so it's not during the typhoon season? Maybe next to the Chinese Grand Prix say? Cuts down on miles.
 
maybe, but I Japanese grand prix is always in the business end of the season. its part of the Japanese grand prix heritage with hunt/lauda, prost/senna, Schumacher/Hill, Schumacher/Hakkinen, Hakkinen/Irvine, Schumacher/Alonso. to lose that & make it a standalone grand prix would be taking something away from the event
 
but looking at the hourly weather that ive found how accurate it turns out to be, I think it looks wet but raceable because they really bad weather. shouldn't hit til 5pm/6pm. which is probally more worrying to japanese F4 than F1

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We are bracing for a Super Typhoon here expected to hit land Saturday and Sunday coming from the south. Very Strong with Max winds of about 250KPH near the center and it's ****ing huge that's why it will take more than 48hrs to pass through Japan.

I won't be surprised if the Race or Qualy will be canceled or moved. Monday is a National holiday so they can even race that day.
We had a huge one just a month ago and affected Chiba areas including crippling the Narita airport so bad that some parts of it still hasn't recovered the electricity service.
BRACE BRACE Japan !
 
We are bracing for a Super Typhoon here expected to hit land Saturday and Sunday coming from the south. Very Strong with Max winds of about 250KPH near the center and it's ****ing huge that's why it will take more than 48hrs to pass through Japan.

I won't be surprised if the Race or Qualy will be canceled or moved. Monday is a National holiday so they can even race that day.
We had a huge one just a month ago and affected Chiba areas including crippling the Narita airport so bad that some parts of it still hasn't recovered the electricity service.
BRACE BRACE Japan !
Good to see you back, Radical san.
 
Stay safe Radical F1!! I'll be thinking of you. I know what we said but don't take things too far from friend ;)

It does sound like it's going to be horrible. I doubt F1 will cancel, they don't usually, the rugby is also likely to be affected but it's awful for the people who live there too. This is in some ways even worse for them, sporting events come and go, they have to live with the mess this thing leaves behind.
 
I suppose that the majority of teams are already in Japan ? If they aren’t maybe they should think about postponing the trip.
 
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