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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hamilton wasnt helped that between 2009 - 2013. not much you could do as it was best driver on 1 his fav tracks in best car & suzuka played to it aero strengths. didnt vettel take pole 4 years in a row. struggle with race pace as qualified well but beaten every yr in race. couldve stopped that streak in 2013 but for too ambitious move that retired him. also as been saud button finally found a "home" he was good at

I remember M. Schumacher's engine going bang because Ferrari cheaped out on a part which supposedly only cost a couple of pence.

it happens so many times. hill was 50p & few others have had issues like that. cant remember. shame as that was shaping up to be a cracking finale. instead of winner take all fight we had a damp squib where alonso just had to finish
 
It would be cool if a journalist (they lurk in forums) asked Hamilton if he feels it took him a few years to dial into Suzuka. He is usually quite honest about this sort of stuff and I'd be interesting to hear what he had to say as he has alluded to struggling at Suzuka on occasions before. I remember him getting visibly upset when he had an off in practice one year.

Just to point out I'm judging Hamilton by a higher standard than most because he is so good. If anyone else had his record here between 08 and 13 then I wouldn't be suggesting it was a poor track for them. Its just he is usually good everywhere!
 
RasputinLives i dont know hamilton & suzuka press conference doesnt normally go well :D

we should judge hamilton because like we said about vettel he is mentioned in same breath as Schumacher Fangio & Prost. partically Schumacher because he is likely to match or better his record
 


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It would be cool if a journalist (they lurk in forums) asked Hamilton if he feels it took him a few years to dial into Suzuka. He is usually quite honest about this sort of stuff and I'd be interesting to hear what he had to say as he has alluded to struggling at Suzuka on occasions before. I remember him getting visibly upset when he had an off in practice one year.

Just to point out I'm judging Hamilton by a higher standard than most because he is so good. If anyone else had his record here between 08 and 13 then I wouldn't be suggesting it was a poor track for them. Its just he is usually good everywhere!
The only thing better about Hamilton in comparison to Leclerc, Verstappen and Vettel is his car and the team. His records along with those of Rosberg are completely skewed. It’s a shame that Rosberg retired at least he put up some sort of challenge to Hamilton.
 
I disagree with that. I think his consistency at performing at such a top level is second to none. But of course it's all very subjective and a personal view isn't it and I can see why you might come to that conclusion.
 
His consistency in part derives from his car and team though. In the past two years we have seen Hamilton and Mercedes crack under pressure at occasions. We keep saying that Ferrari and Red Bull make strategic errors but they're consistently under more pressure from Mercedes. An example of this is Red Bull in Hungary where it wouldn't have made a difference if they had completed another pit stop like Mercedes because Hamilton had the pace to over- and undercut Verstappen.
 
I find it interesting you've attributed all the pace Hamilton had in Hungary down to the car rather than the driver but I'm guessing you've probably seen some analysis round it that I haven't or you wouldn't have put it as an example.
 
For the driver the backing of the team also plays a big role for his on track performance. Rosberg got a right thumping after Spa 2014 although it was a racing incident albeit an unfortunate one because it was his team mate whom he punted off track. Also having to play second fiddle in Malaysia gave Hamilton edge over Rosberg. I can't imagine Hamilton would have done the same when Button came into his team in 2010.
It's also what Vettel has been struggling with at Ferrari unlike his time at Red Bull where Webber got the unjustified blame for the incident in Turkey.
 
I find it interesting you've attributed all the pace Hamilton had in Hungary down to the car rather than the driver but I'm guessing you've probably seen some analysis round it that I haven't or you wouldn't have put it as an example.
He was cruising behind Verstappen, he even said so on the radio. In his last stint Verstappen's tyres were shot whilst Hamilton was on fresh ones.
 
I still don't know how you sperate car from driver from seeing that. I wonder if this is best moved to the Hamilton thread now we've moved away from Suzuka?

Back on topic - Suzuka is famous for its cross over point but I always find we never get a good shot of it TV wise.
 
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I believe it’s the only track with a cross over, it must be amazing to be trackside with a view of cars screaming over the top of other cars.
 
Abu Dhabi is still on the calendar, right?
Monza has a cross over too, it's just not used anymore.

There are plenty of others not on the F1 calendar, such as Oran Park which used to be one of my favourite tracks.
 
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