What Happened During A Wet, Controversial, And Championship Clinching 2022 Japanese Grand Prix
For the second year in a row, Max Verstappen is the F1 World Drivers Champion, and for the second year in a row the race he won the title in was anything but normal
Formula 1 World Drivers Championship trophy (Credit: Morio - Wikipedia Commons - CC BY 4.0)
The Japanese Grand Prix and the Suzuka Circuit returned to the F1 calendar for the first time since 2019, after the 2020 and 2021 events were canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The historic circuit has played host to many championship-deciding races over the years, but few have been as weird as this one, as not even Verstappen or his Red Bull team knew the Drivers Championship had been secured when the checkered flag fell.
It was a rainy weekend in Suzuka, Japan, but the weather cooperated for qualifying, and dry tire running was completed in all three sessions. Despite receiving a reprimand for nearly colliding with the McLaren of Lando Norris in the third stage of qualifying Max Verstappen kept onto his poll time of 1 minute and 29.304 seconds, just 0.010 seconds ahead of Charles Leclerc who qualified second.
The poll put Max Verstappen in the perfect position to win his championship on race day, needing to score only eight more points than Charles Leclerc and six more points than Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez to clinch the title.
On race day we saw lots of rain, including at the beginning of the race. All drivers started on the intermediate tire compound to deal with the wetness of the track, but water spray blocking drivers’ vision was a big issue on the first lap.
At the start, Leclerc momentarily got ahead of Verstappen, but heading into turn one the Dutchman was able to go around the outside and firmly retake the position. Veteran racers Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso made contact which spun the former off track, however, Vettel was able to continue.
Later in the lap Carlos Sainz hydroplaned coming out of the turn 11 hairpin and crashed hard into the wall, causing an advertisement board to fall onto the track which was then collected by Pierre Gasly’s Alpha Tauri. This incident brought out the yellow flag, but another collision, this one between Alex Albon and Kevin Magnussen caused a second retirement as the Williams driver’s car experienced a technical issue due to the contact. Zhou Guanyu also had a small incident as he wasn’t able to stop his car from spinning out of the turn 11 hairpin, unlike Sainz though Zhou lost control at a much lower speed and was able to keep his Alfa Romeo on track.
Despite only a lap of action, Lance Stroll had made up seven positions from 19th to 11th, both Haas cars had made up five positions putting Mick Schumacher 10th and Magnussen 12th, home hero Yuki Tsunoda made up 4 positions from 13th to 9th, and Daniel Riccardo found himself up from 11th to 8th.
On lap two, under the safety car, the race was red flagged and the drivers were called into the pits for what turned out to be just under two hours long as harsh rain poured down on the circuit.
During the red flag we learned of something quite scary. As Pierre Gasly was driving around the track back to the pits on lap two he thought he was all alone since he had pitted at the end of lap one to remove the advertising board from the front of his car. However, as he was rounding the track, he came across a crane which was deployed to recover Carlos Sainz’s wrecked Ferrari. Gasly was going around 124 mph when he saw the crane, which was difficult to see in the rainy conditions. Thankfully, Gasly was able to avoid contact with the crane.
Gasly spoke about the incident saying “I tried to slow down, not in an erratic manner because if I slammed the brake I would have lost the car and ended up in the crane. I was two meters away from passing away today, which is not acceptable as a racing driver. We have a delta lap time, there is a certain process that we've got to follow under the safety car, I was respecting it and there was a crane on the racing line.”
This reminded drivers and fans alike of the incident that killed driver Jules Bianchi in 2014, as Bianchi had collided with a recovery vehicle and later died from his injuries.
Gasly was given a 20-second time penalty and two points on his racing license for his speed under the red flag, but Gasly maintains that he did nothing wrong as he was following the lap time he was told to follow under the conditions.
Hopefully, going forward situations like this can be stopped, either by better communication about vehicles on the track or by not allowing vehicles on the track at all until all the drivers are off the track.
Eventually, when the race restarted, all drivers were on wet compound tires, and there were only around 40 minutes left on the race clock.
Almost immediately after the race went green Nicholas Latifi and Vettel pitted for intermediates and it seemed like the right move from right off the bat. This prompted the rest of the field beside Mick Schumacher to pit, Schumacher tried to keep track position instead of moving onto the faster tires, but it didn’t work as though he did end up leading the race it was only for a few seconds before Max Verstappen caught him. Schumacher slid down the grid and ended up finishing last before the Gasly time penalty got applied.
between the restart and the end of the race, there were so very good midfield battles, Vettel fought his way up the field and managed to finish sixth, Latifi held onto 9th, fending off Lando Norris. Esteban Ocon and Lewis Hamilton had a long fight for P4, with Ocon winning out.
With around 6 minutes left in the race, Sergio Perez was pressuring Charles Leclerc for second place, with Verstappen far off in the distance. On the very last lap of the race, as Verstappen was crossing the line, thinking he won the race but not the championship, Perez and Leclerc were still fighting. Going into the last chicane Leclerc went straight ahead and off the track, and rejoined ahead of Perez to cross the line in P2.
After the race though during the post-race interviews, interviewer and former F1 driver Johnny Herbert informed the audience at home as well as the drivers that Leclerc received a five-second time penalty for “leaving the track and gaining an advantage”, this would mean Leclerc would switch places with Perez, and Verstappen is the new F1 champion since he managed to outscore Perez by six points and Leclerc by eight.
But even that didn’t make sense, the teams, drivers, commentary team, and therefore fans at home were under the impression that since the race was shortened due to a red flag full points would not be awarded. It turns out though that according to Article 6.5 of the F1 Sporting Regulations full points can be awarded if the race is resumed after a red flag, which is how Verstappen managed to win the championship.
Verstappen himself though didn’t believe it until he was reassured of it in the cool-down room prior to the podium ceremony.
“It’s crazy… What a year we’ve had so far – it’s been incredible.” Verstappen said in an interview after the win, “I’m so thankful to everyone who has been contributing to the success. The whole team here [at the track] but also back at the factory constantly working flat out… besides that, the work we’ve done together with Honda all the way through every year, just constantly improving rapidly. To win now twice with them is very emotional, especially here [at their home track]”.
Verstappen, is now a two-time champion and back-to-back championship winner, cementing himself as an all-time great at just 25 years old.
Going into round 18 at the Circuit of the Americas in Texas for the United States Grand Prix Red Bull will shift their complete focus to the Constructors Championship where they are currently first and are 165 points ahead of second-place Ferrari. Alpine and McLaren continue their fight for fourth, and lower down the field anything can happen as there are only 18 points between Alfa Romeo in fifth and Alpha Tauri in ninth.
For the drivers’ standings, Perez is now one point ahead of Leclerc for second, and only five points are preventing Carlos Sainz from taking fourth in the championship from George Russell.
Here are the complete results from the 2022 Japanese Grand Prix:
P1 - Max Verstappen - Red Bull Racing
P2 - Sergio Perez - Red Bull Racing
P3 - Charles Leclerc - Ferrari
P4 - Esteban Ocon - Alpine
P5 - Lewis Hamilton - Mercedes-AMG
P6 - Sebastian Vettel - Aston Martin
P7 - Fernando Alonso - Alpine
P8 - George Russell - Mercedes-AMG
P9 - Nicholas Latifi - Williams
P10 - Lando Norris - McLaren
P11 - Daniel Riccardo - McLaren
P12 - Lance Stroll - Aston Martin
P13 - Yuki Tsunoda - Alpha Tauri
P14 - Kevin Magnussen - Haas
P15 - Valtteri Bottas - Alfa Romeo
P16 - Zhou Guanyu - Alfa Romeo
P17 - Mick Schumacher - Haas
P18 - Pierre Gasly - Alpha Tauri
DNF - Carlos Sainz - Ferrari
DNF - Alex Albon - Williams
