Verstappen clinches second world-title with victory in wet #JapaneseGP. #F1

Verstappen Japanese GP victory – Max Verstappen clinched victory and his second World Driver’s Championship crown in a heavily-delayed and wet Japanese GP, ahead of Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc hit with a five-second time penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage at Casio Triangle and thus finished third behind the Mexican.

 

 

The Dutchman dominated the time-limited and controversial race at Suzuka to win by a huge 26.763 seconds, but not scoring the fastest lap bonus point, which looked to leave him one point short of the title.

 

However, a post-race five-second timed penalty for second-placed Leclerc – deemed to have squeezed Perez excessively out of the Casio Triangle – relegated the Ferrari driver behind the Mexican to give Verstappen the world title.

 

The ever-changing weather forecast for the Japanese Grand Prix weekend saw the rain shower, which was originally predicted to hit after the race come earlier than expected.

 

All drivers opted to begin the race on the green side-walled intermediate rubber for what remained as a proper standing-start.

 

But the conditions proved small, as the red flag was waved due to a messy opening lap.

 

When the rain-soaked shortened-timed 28-lap Japanese GP began, pole-sitter Verstappen got a poor run off the line compared to rival Leclerc who had a slight lead over the Red Bull driver, but the former managed to re-take the first place by holding onto the left-hand wider side and carried momentum to stay in-front of the Ferrari.

 

Ferrari’s third starting Carlos Sainz, who was jumped by Perez, became the first retiree from the race after catching a patch of standing water whilst hitting the throttle and the torque surge sent the F1-75 into the wall.

 

Sainz was eliminated with a crushed rear-wing, while Williams Racing’s Alexander Albon pulled over into the gravel with an engine problem, as Alfa Romeo’s Zhou Guanyu spun his C42 racer to re-join in 17^th place.

 

Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel dropped from his impressive ninth in qualifying to 16^th after a tangle with Alpine’s Fernando Alonso into the opening corner, which sent the German into the gravel and the AMR22 racer spun.

 

Vettel’s team-mate Lance Stroll jumped seven places from 11^th with a great opening tour.

 

Scuderia AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly, who started the race from pit-lane, due to a rear-wing change and revised suspension, drove over an advertising board ripped off after the Sainz crash.

 

This tore off the front wing from his AT03 racer and became stuck to block his visibility and forced the Frenchman to pit.

 

For all of this, the safety car was deployed before the red flags stopped the Grand Prix.

 

A moment of concern came when Gasly re-joined on full wet compounds and just as the red flags were waved, appeared to pass at full-speed a flatbed recovery tractor on track through turn 12, making the Frenchman furious.

 

The investigation is currently being looked at by the stewards, with Gasly heading to the office.

 

The contention sits with Gasly’s speed while chasing the pack, which the FIA stated that was “up to 250kph.” The recovery tractor was on circuit at that spot for the entire field.

 

***Following the investigation by the race stewards, Gasly was deemed to have breached Article 57.2 of the FIA Sporting Regulations for speeding under red flag conditions exceeding speeds at the scene of the incident by over 200kph and at one point 251kph. Gasly was given a drive through penalty at the end of the race (20 seconds added to his time and two penalty points added to his licence – up to nine out of 12.***

 

There was a lot of backlash from current and former Formula 1 drivers on social media.

 

The suspension lasted for 42 minutes before a local 1450 local start time for the restart was planned, which was meant to be a rolling start behind the safety car as the full wet tyre was mandated by the FIA.

 

However, two minutes before the restart, the race restart procedure was suspended again by race control and over the next 80 minutes, the rain got heavier and continued to tumble.

 

In that time, the medical car was sent out occasionally for sighting laps, but conditions did not improve until two hours had passed after the first red flag.

 

But the Grand Prix finally scheduled to begin at 1615 local time with the cars as before, on the blue-marked full wet compounds for a rolling start with 48 minutes remaining on the clock.

 

As the drivers held mixed opinions on visibility and circuit conditions, the safety car lead an out-lap, full and in-lap, before returning to the pits to leave Verstappen clear of Leclerc.

 

Vettel and Williams Racing’s Nicholas Latifi jumped into the pits to switch onto the intermediates, but the former was released side-by-side to the Canadian, before McLaren’s Lando Norris and Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas and stopped a tour later.

 

With those runners setting quickest sectors, Verstappen lead Leclerc into the pits, but the latter lost one second to a sticky right-rear as Perez and Mercedes’ George Russell were held up by double-stacks.

 

This left Alonso in the lead over McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo and Haas F1 Team’s Mick Schumacher, but only the latter, anticipating a safety car intervention, opting not to pit for intermediates next time round.

 

Verstappen flew by Schumacher on the inside, but Leclerc lost 1.6 seconds trying to relegate the German to leave him 4.6 seconds adrift of Verstappen on the ninth tour with 31 minutes remaining.

 

Schumacher remained a sitting duck, lost out to Perez, Alpine’s Esteban Ocon and Mercedes Sir Lewis Hamilton over the next lap before finally stopping on the 12^th tour having already fallen to 13^th place.

 

Verstappen continued his charge, extending his gap at over 1.5 seconds a lap, as Leclerc, seemed to struggle as Perez continued to circulate a second faster than the Ferrari in-front.

 

With eight minutes left, Verstappen held an 18-second lead as Perez was 0.8 seconds behind Leclerc, but despite a couple of chances, could not get passed.

 

Perez’s best opportunity came when Leclerc missed the first sequence of the chicane only for the Ferrari driver to re-join and squeeze Perez to the edge of the circuit on the rundown to the chequered flag.

 

This order prevented Verstappen from stopping one last time for a fresh set of inters for an attempt of the fastest tour, as the Verstappen took the Japanese GP victory and clinched his second world title by a whopping 26.876 seconds over Leclerc.

 

It looked to be, without the extra point, Verstappen appeared to miss out on his crown until the United States Grand Prix next up, only for Leclerc to be slapped with a five-second time penalty to drop behind Perez.

 

Verstappen only learned of his achievement in the post-race interview.

 

Behind the top three finishers, overtaking was a premium following the rush for intermediate rubber, which had previously mixed the order.

 

Ocon defended bravely against a fast-charging Mercedes of Hamilton to hold fourth.

 

Vettel placed sixth, having gained a position after Alonso made a late stop for intermediates to drop to tenth before climbing back up the field, as behind the Spaniard was Russell.

 

The Mercedes driver was one of the few movers, but swiftly passed AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda, Norris and Latifi for eighth place.

 

Latifi’s early stop for inters gave the Canadian a return to the points in ninth as Norris rounded out the top ten over McLaren team-mate Ricciardo.

 

The aforementioned Stroll and Tsunoda were 12^th and 13^th respectively as Haas F1 Team’s Kevin Magnussen took 14^th in the classification.

 

Alfa Romeo pairing Bottas and Zhou came 15^th and 16^th respectively with AlphaTauri’s Gasly and Haas F1 Team’s Schumacher bringing up the rear.

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2022 Japanese GP – The Top Three

 

 

2022 Japanese GP Winner (2022 World Driver’s Champion) – Max Verstappen, #1, Oracle Red Bull Racing-RBPT, RB18:

“We got quite a good amount of laps in; the car was flying. Very happy we could race here.”

 

2^nd Place – Sergio Perez, #11, Oracle Red Bull Racing-RBPT, RB18:

“It was a bit hectic with Charles, good racing, I tried to make a move and he locked up and went off. The penalty was fair.”

 

3^rd Place – Charles Leclerc, #16, Scuderia Ferrari, F1-75:

Quote Not Supplied.

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Formula 1 Honda Japanese Grand Prix 2022 Race Results Classification (28 Laps):

 

POS	NO	DRIVER	CAR	LAPS	TIME/RETIRED	PTS
1	1	Max Verstappen	RED BULL RACING RBPT	28	3:01:44.004	25
2	16	Charles Leclerc	FERRARI	28	+26.763s	18
3	11	Sergio Perez	RED BULL RACING RBPT	28	+27.066s	15
4	31	Esteban Ocon	ALPINE RENAULT	28	+39.685s	12
5	44	Lewis Hamilton	MERCEDES	28	+40.326s	10
6	5	Sebastian Vettel	ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES	28	+46.358s	8
7	14	Fernando Alonso	ALPINE RENAULT	28	+46.369s	6
8	63	George Russell	MERCEDES	28	+47.661s	4
9	6	Nicholas Latifi	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	28	+70.143s	2
10	4	Lando Norris	MCLAREN MERCEDES	28	+70.782s	1
11	3	Daniel Ricciardo	MCLAREN MERCEDES	28	+72.877s	0
12	18	Lance Stroll	ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES	28	+73.904s	0
13	22	Yuki Tsunoda	ALPHATAURI RBPT	28	+75.599s	0
14	20	Kevin Magnussen	HAAS FERRARI	28	+86.016s	0
15	77	Valtteri Bottas	ALFA ROMEO FERRARI	28	+86.496s	0
16	24	Zhou Guanyu	ALFA ROMEO FERRARI	28	+87.043s	0
17	10	Pierre Gasly	ALPHATAURI RBPT	28	+88.091s	0
18	47	Mick Schumacher	HAAS FERRARI	28	+92.523s	0
NC	55	Carlos Sainz	FERRARI	0	DNF	0
NC	23	Alexander Albon	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	0	DNF	0

* Provisional results

https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2022/races/1134/japan/race-result.html

 

Click here for the 2022 Formula 1 World Driver’s (Top 10) and Constructors Championship Standings.

 

Round 19 of the 2022 FIA Formula One World Championship returns to the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, United States for the Formula 1 Aramco United States Grand Prix 2022 from Friday October 21-Sunday October 23.

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