[Reinhard]

Konichiwa! So we are in Suzuka! Lovely to have this amazing race quickly after the last Malaysian GP. A great chance for Ferrari to redeem themselves & for Mercedes & Bottas to ascertain whether Malaysia was a one off or Ferrari have done something special that should have them worried!





One of my (and almost every F1 Fan's) all time favourite tracks. And now has a somber feeling & memory of the late Jules Bianchi attached with it...


FP1 is already done and dusted. Vettel has thrown the gauntlet & Sainz has thrown the car into the Degner barriers . He shouldn't start destroying STR cars now that he is assured of a Renault from next season!

Standings after FP1 -


Let's hope we get a close 3 way fight between RBR, Mercedes, Ferrari. Which one will come on top?

Its a HONDA owned track. I wonder if their top brass will have the mettle to attend the race after all the negative publicity generated due to lack of performance and the complicated divorce from Mclaren and immediate re-marriage with STR. Will be an awkward situation as McLaren is still their partner team but both don't want to look at each other now mostly.

[jfxavier]

Hopefully it will be a wet race weekend.
FP2 was a washout mostly.

Excellent head gear with DRS flap included.
Some of the best F1 fans in the world can be seen at Suzuka.
Hope Honda has a decent showing to please them.

[discobiscuit]

If it is a wet race or partly a wet race, Hamilton will have an edge.

[Makin Rulesz]

With only four more races left in the season after this, Vettel has to win all the remaining races to win the championship unless Hamilton falters somewhere. Based on the performance in the recent races shown by Redbull, I feel they have vital role to play in the in the final outcome.

Here is the race schedule for weekend

[danlalan]

Latest update from the hamilton garage is that his car is back to normal at suzuka.
He feels that there is a big change in the car from malaysia and even though only FP1 was dry he felt the car has sorted out its issues.
He did top the charts on the washed out FP2. But the real show will be the qualifying on saturday. A wet qualifying session may work in the favor of hamilton.
Suprisingly the race is a dry race.
Also latest news on Bottas is he has undergone an unscheduled gearbox change and he will get a 5 place grid penalty.

[deetjohn]

The recent updates by Ferrari look great. The car is genuinely fast. But the team was not able to exploit the pace for good points either at Singapore (Seppuku) or Malaysia (turbo).

Ferrari hasn't won at Japan for long. And a win is long over due. The last time the team came very close to that top step was in 2006. Then the engine gave up ghost on Michael' car while he was leading. An engine failure which happened after very many years. That DNF sealed the championship that season. I still recall that weekend with a lot of pain.

The title looks very hard given the host of circuits yet to feature. But a win or two will be great for the team and the season. And this weekend is a good one to pull one back after the disappointments in the last two races. RBR is also looking good. I am somehow not convinced about Mercedes this weekend. Maybe Lewis will pull one out of the bag when it matters like he always do.

[shibujp]

Hamilton is murdering those lap times!! Force India with both cars in Q3 versus the Williams of Massa.

Drive on,
Shibu.

[dmplog]

Lewis is in complete control and in a zen like state - breaking that all time lap record en-route to his maiden pole!
With Bottas having a grid penalty, Vettel and Hamilton will make the front row for the race. It will be a very interesting race as Ferraris have always been slightly quicker in actual race.

[shibujp]

What an anticlimax to a championship that was building up to a epic. Extremely disappointing to see Vettel retire so early in the race.

Excellent chance for Ocon to grap a podium for Force India. But for the honey badger!!

With the kind of reliability they are having, Ferrari may see themselves beat in the constructors championship by Red Bull. That would be salt in a wound.

Drive on,
Shibu.

[TSIboy]

Originally Posted by shibujp

What an anticlimax to a championship that was building up to a epic. Extremely disappointing to see Vettel retire so early in the race.

How unfortunate! By the way things are looking, this year's championship fight won't last till the finale in Abu Dhabi.

[TSIboy]

Another one for Hamilton! This man is on a roll. Verstappen follows with Ricciardo completing the podium. Things got quite close in the last four laps.
With this win, Lewis adds a solid 25 points over Vettel and the title is definitely his if he wins the next round!
Cheers!

[shibujp]

In the midst of all the high profile exit of Vettel, the real downer for me was way down the order where a rear wing put paid to what was shaping up to be a wonderful strategy from Renault and the Hulk. We also potentially missed out on a set of overtakes as the Hulk worked his way up to take the final points on offer.

Magnussen pulled off a great move on Massa to get past after being stuck behind him for quite sometime. Listerally used Massa's defence against it after the start finish straight. It is pretty evident that Mercedes uses Williams to block competitors as the Silver Arrows lap them. There were several instances this season. Today it was Verstappen's turn when after literally leaving the door open for Hamilton, Massa then did his best to keep Max behind for a few seconds enough for Lewis to get out of the DRS zone of Max. When they caught up to Alonso and Massa, the gap between Lewis and Max was just 0.6 seconds!! Also strange to hear Max ask his team whether it is okay to make a move on Hamilton. This also meant that it ruined Alonso's fight for the 10th place as well.

He talks a big game but today Hamilton had to request his team to get Bottas out of his way after being unable to find a way past and having a charging Max on his engine cover. I would have preferred seeing him defend against Max and race it out.

Raikkonen salvaged some points and offered some solace to what must have been a gut wrenching moment for Ferrari having to retire their lead driver and literally give up hopes of clinching the driver's championship. Red Bull are just 92 points behind them in the constructor's championship and Bottas, 13 points behind Vettel in the driver's championship.

Originally Posted by TSIboy

How unfortunate! By the way things are looking, this year's championship fight won't last till the finale in Abu Dhabi.

Well, I believe Lewis can close the championship in Austin. However with the top three teams pushing each other so hard now, reliability gremlins are not out of question. We see it crippling Ferrari in their bid to match Merc's pace and towards the end of the race today Lewis was complaining of a vibration from his PU.

Drive on,
Shibu.

[GTO]

Scoop! Ferrari's F1 team to release a new book titled "Idiot's guide to losing an F1 championship" . Is this the way you fight in the championship? One car failure after another, and Vettel's mad move in Singapore. It's the job of the team manager to tie it all together and, IMHO, he's doing a terrible job. After so many years, Ferrari had a realistic shot at the championship, but going by the typically Italian way of doing things, it's no wonder that their last championship was a decade ago. Ferrari has always been a team that can't put the hammer down when it counts - their golden era was only due to Schumacher + the team he brought with him (most importantly, Brawn).

Vettel was gutted after the race. My heart goes out to him:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kjb-8dz8Yvo

Ferrari have ruined what was a superb season for us fans. Now, the championship is more or less decided. This will be Hamilton's 4th and I feel he has it in him for at least another 2 (or 3?) more.

Mercedes is an unstoppable force. Loads of money from the parent, Hamilton, Toto & gang. They have everything going for them.

[mayankk]

Originally Posted by GTO

Scoop!-------SNIP--------- them.

Strangely reminiscent of Mclaren's final days with Hakkinen and early on with Kimi. Though the failures have not been as dramatic as they were then. Exploding engines, flat spotted tyres making the suspension fail and what not.
That was due to the highly strung nature of the cars, though. This is for why?

[vb-saan]

What started as a wonderful championship duel is now almost completely settled with Ferrari’s fortune reversal in the 3 Asian races.
Bottas now got a realistic chance of finishing second and Lewis can literally stroll towards the championship without doing anything fancy against the charging (red)bulls.