This weekend started similarly to last race, with a Williams crash in FP1. It was the Williams of Logan Sargeant who crashed into the barriers this time. The crash came after it was confirmed the Williams driver would be competing with his teammate’s, Alexander Albon, old chassis as the team does not have a spare one.
Home favourite Yuki Tsunoda of RB produced a great lap in Q2 to knock out his teammate, veteran driver Daniel Ricciardo, and make it through to the final round of qualifying. This Q3 success pleased the Japanese fans immensely, with loud cheers audible even on the broadcast.
It was an early start for European fans on Sunday for the race itself. Fans woke up to a Red Bull front row after a successful qualifying for the pair of drivers yesterday.
On lap one, the race was red flagged following a rather large crash between Willams’ Albon and RB’s Ricciardo at Turn two. Thankfully, both drivers were out of the cars straightaway and reported being okay almost immediately afterwards. This accident can be considered as a racing incident, with neither driver truly at fault.
The red flag lasted approximately 30 minutes, with a fleet of maintenance vehicles and personnel coming on track to fix the damage done by the accident which appeared to be quite extensive. The teams also spent this time checking if their cars sustained damage and changing tyres where desired.
As the cars had completed a sector, race control had a new confirmed race order for the restart. The race restarted at 32 minutes passed the hour.
The restart saw both Mercedes cars losing places in rapid succession. Red Bull driver, Sergio Perez, who started both times in second position, went wide on lap seven, demonstrating the strong tail wind present at points on the track. This allowed McLaren’s Lando Norris to catch up to the leading two cars.
In the midfield, cars seemed to switch positions constantly. Racing strategy differed between teams, with many using the undercut strategy that is particularly effective at this circuit, and changed often to cover other teams or react to slow pit stops .
The McLarens of Norris and Oscar Piastri suffered high tyre degradation throughout the race, meaning they were forced to stop before they would have liked. This also forced them into the undercut strategy, as it caused them both to pit before those they were racing against.
Stake’s Zhou Guanyu retired from the race with reported gear box issues on lap 19. The race of 20 quickly became a race of only 17.
On lap 42, Sargeant crashed yet again. This time, however, he was able to save his car from the barriers and caused only a short yellow flag in sector two of the track. Fortunately for Williams, Sargeant did not have to retire from this crash. At this point, Max Verstappen of Red Bull led his teammate Perez who was followed by the two Ferraris of Carlos Sainz Jr. and Charles Leclerc.
In the battle for seventh place, Piastri was forced off the track by Mercedes’ George Russell. By going off the track, Piastri was able to maintain seventh place. Russell was noted by race control for this incident. On the final lap, Russell passed Piastri following a mistake from the McLaren driver.
The 229,000 fans in attendance got a great show over the course of the weekend despite it ending with the usual Verstappen victory. The winning Red Bull driver also gained an additional World Championship point by achieving the fastest lap of the race.
Written by Alexandra.
Featured Image Credit: suzukacircuit.jp
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