Formula One Vault

PRIXVIEW – Japanese Grand Prix

Round three of the season sees F1 head to springtime Suzuka for the Japanese Grand Prix, the high-speed figure of eight 3.6-mile circuit is one of the only figure eight circuits on the calendar drivers love the challenge of this circuit which could be described as one where risk can be hugely rewarding but mistakes are punished.

Suzuka should give us another piece in the jigsaw I think we are building in these opening races as it’s a more technical circuit where downforce is more important for the majority of the lap than straight-line speed. Overtaking can be more difficult given the twisty and high-speed nature but that can lead to some brilliant moments in terms of overtaking and strategy.

It’s similar to Zandvoort which was also designed by Hans Hugenholtz it shares many of the same characteristics, a mix of a high-speed straight, fast sweeping corners and more technical sections. The old-school circuit owned by Honda was originally designed as a test track, with only one slow corner; without the Casio chicane, some cars would go through the final long right-hand corner flat out and then would go past the pits at more than 200 mph (320 km/h).

The circuit is one which drivers love as it’s an old-school circuit which punishes mistakes and where there is difficulty through the twisting corners for drivers to overtake. It’s a tricky circuit which requires drivers who can attack the circuit, and push themselves to the limits. However, mistakes are costly as the barriers are close and not as many run-off areas as in modern circuits.

Suzuka is one of the most demanding circuits for drivers both physically and mentally, as there is a huge strain on their bodies by the high forces through the fast-flowing corners in the first half of the lap and the flat-out effective straights between Spoon Curve (Turn Fourteen) and Turn One, only broken by the Casio/Hitachi Chanice (Turn Sixteen-Seventeen) coupled with the grass and gravel run-off areas meaning there is little room for error.

This means that some flexibility is needed with strategy, also mistakes can happen and that can lead to safety cars, red flags etc as we don’t have the huge tarmac runoff and the grass and gravel. But at the same time, this is a circuit has huge rewards if you get it right on the limit from lap time.

Until last year the race was often one of the final races of the season but the move towards sustainability saw it move to April. This in the late 1980s and early 1990s created some epic a hugely controversial decoders between feuding McLaren teammates Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna. The height of the rivalry was the 1990 title decider, Senna felt that pole was on the dirty side, he didn’t yield and move over for the Frenchman with them both crashing out at Turn One. That gave him his second title by default.

That followed on from a crash the previous season at the final chicane, which handed Prost the title. Senna was off the racing line and it would be more difficult for him to make a better start. Frustrated and angry, Senna mimicked Prost’s statement of the previous year saying he would not move over if Prost attempted to overtake in the first corner.

However, the first world championship Grand Prix was held at Fuji Speedway, the climax to the 1976 season saw the title decider between James Hunt and Niki Lauda as it was held during monsoon conditions. Lauda, who had survived a near-fatal crash at the German Grand Prix earlier in the season, withdrew from the race stating that his life was more important than the championship, as did Brazilians Emerson Fittipaldi and Carlos Pace.

Hunt managed to finish third after recovering from a slow stop dropping him to fifth, that was enough to beat Lauda to the championship by a point as Mario Andretti took victory. The Englishman won the following year, but a collision between Gilles Villeneuve and Ronnie Peterson during the race saw Villeneuve’s Ferrari somersault into a restricted area, killing two spectators.

After a decade off the calendar, the race returned at Suzuka in 1987, becoming a driver and fan favourite, since except when it was redeveloped in 2007-08 and when it was cancelled due to COVID in 2020-21 the race has remained at Suzuka. Until its move to the springtime last year and calendar expansion post-covid it became known often for deciding championships.

Suzuka tends to favour the teams with dominant cars and drivers we have seen classic and controversial title fights from Prost-Senna from 1989 to 1991. The height of the rivalry was the 1990 title decider, Senna felt that pole was on the dirty side, he didn’t yield and move over for the Frenchman with them both crashing out at Turn One. That gave him his second title by default.

That followed on from a crash the previous season at the final chicane, which handed Prost the title. Senna was off the racing line and it would be more difficult for him to make a better start. Frustrated and angry, Senna mimicked Prost’s statement of the previous year saying he would not move over if Prost attempted to overtake in the first corner.

1998 saw another dramatic title decider between Schumacher and Finn Mika Häkkinen. The two drivers had duelled all season long and Häkkinen led Schumacher by four points heading into the final race at Suzuka. Schumacher started on pole for the race but stalled on the grid, giving Häkkinen in second a clear track in front of him for the start.

The beginning of the 2000s saw dominance by Schumacher and Ferrari, the German winning four out of five races. But 2003 was probably the most challenging, given the difficulties overtaking. Schumacher needed to come at least eighth, he started at fourteenth on the grid but managed to secure the point he needed to take his sixth World Drivers’ Championship, beating the record held by Juan Manuel Fangio. His race also nearly ended in a collision with Takuma Sato and his brother Ralf.

2004 saw the first of three qualifying sessions at Suzuka run on Sunday due to bad weather, but it was another race where Schumacher took victory in his all-concurring Ferrari. 2005 saw Kimi Raikkonen win from seventeen and in 2007 and 2008 races saw a brief return to Fuji, Lewis Hamilton took victory in torrential rain after Alonso crashed out allowing Heikki Kovalainen to finish second ahead of Raikkonen, the first time that two Finnish drivers were together on the podium. In 2008, the first corner brought trouble for both the title-contending McLarens and Ferraris, and Alonso was able to take the victory in a Renault. Hamilton finished out the points while title rival Felipe Massa only finished seventh.

2009 saw the race return to a redesigned Suzuka in what was intended to be a bi-annual deal with Fuji but that deal collapsed amidst the financial crisis. Until 2019 and for the foreseeable future the rebuilt circuit. The 2009 and 2010 races were won by Sebastian Vettel.

The Red Bull driver took his second title with third in 2011, with  Jenson Button (the only driver in the field who had a theoretical chance of beating Vettel to the title) winning the race wearing a special tribute helmet to the people affected by the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, and the Fukushima disaster.

Kamui Kobayashi finished third the following year, holding off Button and became the first Japanese driver to finish on the podium in Suzuka since Aguri Suzuki in 1990. The 2013 race was won by Vettel for Red Bull, marking his fourth consecutive victory of the season as well as his fourth victory overall at Suzuka.

The beginning of the hybrid era in 2014 up until the Covid hiatus in 2020 saw Mercedes dominate the race with six wins in six years. However the 2014 race was overshadowed by the fatal accident of Jules Bianchi, in the closing stage Adrian Sutil spun off at Dunlop, as the crane came to recover the Sauber.

However Bianchi also spun in the same place and crashed into the crane, the race was then abandoned and the Frenchman died the following July, the first driver to be killed since Roland Ratzenberger and Senna at Imola in 1994. While the race was then abandoned on lap forty-four with Lewis Hamilton taking his first win at Suzuka.

The Englishman won again after overtaking teammate Nico Rosberg’s deficit in the Drivers’ Championship therefore increased to 48 points. Sebastian Vettel finished third for Ferrari.

The 2022 race was mired in controversy and anger, in similar conditions to 2014, the FIA dispatched a recovery vehicle while the race was under double yellow flag conditions, which meant that the vehicle was on the track at the same time as the cars themselves.

Bianchi’s compatriot Pierre Gasly narrowly avoided crashing into a crane under double yellow flag conditions, which meant that the vehicle was on the track at the same time as the Formula One cars themselves. Drivers and team bosses united to call the decision from race control “unacceptable”. Following the red flag several drivers took to Twitter/X condemning the situation.

In 2023, Verstappen took victory again a dominant win from the pole holding off both McLarens at the start before building a twenty-second lead over Lando Norris and putting himself in the position to win the championship in the sprint in Doha when he finished third.

Race & Circuit Guide

Fast facts

• Ferrari has not won at Suzuka since Michael Schumacher’s last Japanese success in 2004. Schumacher won the Japanese Grand Prix a record six times and Hamilton, one of whose wins was at Fuji, can equal that.
• Michael Schumacher holds the record for most pole positions (8) and most wins (6) at Suzuka.
• Following Ayrton Senna’s disqualification, Alessandro Nannini was declared the winner of the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka in 1989, his one and only F1 victory.
• Max Verstappen took his second title win with Red Bull at Suzuka in 2022, 11 years to the day since Sebastian Vettel took his second title with Red Bull at the track in 2011.
• In 2024, with a tenth-place finish, Yuki Tsunoda became the first Japanese driver to score a point in the Japanese Grand Prix since Kamui Kobayashi 12 years earlier.

Event timetable

What happened in 2024?

Qualifying saw Verstappen beat Perez by six-hundredths of a second as Red Bull locked out the front row, as Perez produced one of his best qualifying laps for a long time to come up just short. Lando Norris was four-tenths off Verstappen, as Sainz couldn’t unlock the same performances as he did down under as he was six-tenths behind the Dutchman. But he did go just four thousandths faster than his fellow Spaniard Fernando Alonso.

Verstappen took a comfortable victory as he beat his Red Bull teammate Perez by twelve seconds. Despite the red flags, he converted both poles into a lead at Turn One where he was able to control the race dominated by differing tyre strategies through the top ten, his third win in three years at Suzuka.

Sainz finished third, twenty-one seconds behind Verstappen as he finished on the podium for the fourth time this season. The Spaniard overtook his one-stopping teammate Charles Leclerc by six seconds, Leclerc had used an unconventional one-stop strategy to come from eighth to fourth after he was surprisingly off the pace in qualifying

The Monacan was able to maintain his advantage over Lando Norris when the pit stops shake out but he did lose out to Perez at that stage, as he swept around Leclerc aided by DRS into Turn One. But then with Red Bull off in the lead and with fifteen laps to go, Verstappen rebuilt his lead over Perez, as Leclerc did over the Norris.

Championship Standings

What to watch for?

McLaren are now I think firmly the favourites this season, but Suzuka should give us more answers because it’s more on the technical end of the spectrum rather than speed. I still think from what I saw in Sakhir and Shanghai in the middle more technical sector it seems they still had the advantage over the rest of the field but not as big.

If we see them have a really strong and dominant win this weekend because of the type of circuit we have being more technical and about the corners, that will further underline their status as favourites. Their main rivals Ferrari suffered a big blow, it could turn out later in the season, after both Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton were disqualified in Shanghai.

They need to bounce back strongly as McLaren are I think beginning to get this momentum after two Grands Prix wins history tells us that the stronger you are at the start of the season and the more likely you are to win championships. But I think it’s hard at this stage to see which driver is going to come out on top.

Suzuka in my view is somewhere in the middle when it comes to overtaking, it’s not easy but when you see overtaking it makes you sit up. But I do think these regulations have made it easier because cars are able to follow more closely and we have seen great battles over the decades, but its unforgiving. Its defiantly a circuit a driver needs to build into during the practice sessions, and confidence can be knocked if you make a mistake.

This circuit is also physically demanding for drivers because its high speed and downforce, until last year they would normally spend all season building up to Singapore and Suzuka because of that. It’s a really important test I feel now being early on in the season of teams and drivers.

The big story this weekend is Yuki Tsunoda who has been prompted replacing Liam Lawson after just two Grands Prix adding pressure is this being his home race. There are I think still going to be lots of questions for Red Bull, about this decision and why they made the switch now. Tsunoda, I think is a decent driver and has more experience, but he apparently was rejected because of his character.

I expect going back to Bahrain next weekend where we had testing a month ago, this is probably the last race before we see the first raft of upgrades so team may look to develop a strong base for the upgrades. There may be some hints from teams over the weekend and into next week of where teams are seeking improvements when they come.

2023 vs 2024 Race Data

2024 Lap time comparison

Tyres