Luke’s Weekend Review – Japanese GP 2024

Leave a Comment / News / By

Suzuka Spectacle: Round 4 Highlights of the 2024 F1 Season

Japan GP 6

And with that race done, we close off Round 4 of the 2024 season and look at the race Suzuka has offered in 2024 and it didn’t disappoint in regard to action and overtakes despite the difficult technical track which is sometimes drivers find it challenging to overtake.

After a quick formation lap the 20 drivers lined up for the race start and when the lights went out, we see Max Verstappen get a good start and was able to cover off his teammate Sergio Perez and maintain the lead. Fernando Alonso who was starting in 5th had a great start on softs compared to the drivers ahead on the medium compound, but despite his speed he still found himself boxed in behind Carlos Sainz and Lando Norris.

As clean as it was in the front of the pack, the same cannot be said about the back half of the pack as it was only 3 corners before we see a race stopping incident between Daniel Ricciardo and Alex Albon as we see Ricciardo steering right when he was unaware that Albon was on his right and they touch tyres and both go off into the gravel and into the barrier with a bit of speed. Thankfully both drivers were ok and managed to get out of the cars and upon further review of the incident we see that Ricciardo was actually looking left as he was making sure he was leaving space for Lance Stroll on the left while he was completely unaware of Albon on his right. The incident was noted by the stewards and said that they will investigate after the race but in the end, they deemed this a first lap racing incident. This incident also brought out the Red Flag which meant that the rest of the drivers will have to do another standing start.

After 15 minutes where the stewards were clearing the cars off track and repairing the barriers it was time to go again and the cars go round one more time round the track from the pits and line up on the grid for the next start. Nico Hulkenberg was in the top 10 for this restart as he managed to get some good overtakes done at the start of the race before the incident. It was lights out once more and Max once again manages to get away well and covers off Perez, while Hulkenberg had a very slow start and threw all the hard work away as he loses 6 places off the restart. Alas the restart was clean, and we managed to get a full racing lap this time round.

We start settling in and we hear a few radio messages come in about some complaints, starting at Alpine, we hear Esteban Ocon asking the team to have a look at the car as on the restart Pierre Gasly hit him on the side and luckily the team mentioned that all was ok with the car. At Ferrari we hear last race’s winner Carlos Sainz say that he can notice Lando Norris struggling a bit on his tyres on lap 8 while on lap 10 at Mercedes we hear George Russell say that his steering feels weird as it’s vibrating a lot. This most likely is a result of him locking up a few laps earlier.

Sainz was on the money when he called that Norris is struggling as on lap 12 Norris gets called in for his stop to get some fresh tyres and also undercut Perez. Norris pitted from 3rd and came out in 10th, but this stop triggered a wave of pits at the front of the grid as quite a few drivers followed suit to protect from the undercuts. Oscar Piastri pits one lap after Norris and so does Stroll. And then on lap 13 we hear a radio message you don’t often hear coming from drivers as Lewis Hamilton asks if he should let Russell through which later after the race, we found out that Hamilton was having issues with steering and stating he couldn’t turn so he didn’t want to hinder Russell’s race and played the team game as they do swap later that lap.

Mid-Race Maneuvers and Strategy Calls Define Intense Japanese GP

On lap 13 we see Zhou Guanyu come into the pits for the 3rd time in a few laps which lead us to believe he was having issues and we were right as he never made it back out as the team said they had to retire the car due to gearbox issues. Ferrari and Red Bull seemed to be in sync on lap 16 as they pit Sainz and Perez at the same time from 3rd and 2nd and they come out in 7th and 6th after Red Bull had a great stop for Perez. Norris managed to pull the undercut on Perez and was now running ahead of him. Red Bull didn’t waste any more time and they also pitted Verstappen from the lead and comes out in 3rd behind Russell but doesn’t waste any time and clears him on the same lap.

Sergio Perez was pulling off some moves where we were not expecting them as on 2 consecutive laps, he managed to clear the Mercedes pair on 130R as he took the inside and outbroke them into the corner. Perez was now running in 4th and on the hunt for Norris in 3rd who was able to clear Russell a lap earlier as well running close to Verstappen. On Lap 21, Verstappen was able to get back in the lead as he gets past Charles Leclerc who was still on the 1st set of tyres as Ferrari told Leclerc to not waste any time with Verstappen and Norris as he was on a different strategy.

Mercedes at this stage of the race were not having the best race and we also hear Hamilton come on the radio on lap 22 to tell them to change the strategy as they were getting past by everyone around them. Mercedes do take this under consideration, but they do advise that they need to wait for the window to clear a bit and on lap 24 Mercedes do call in Hamilton in for a pit after Russell pitted on lap 23 for fresh tyres.

On lap 22 we see Perez managing to clear Norris and get back in the podium positions and get onto the hunt on Leclerc who was running in 2nd place on his starting tyres. Also, on Lap 22 we hear Alpine give the hurry up to Ocon as they predicted that on lap 23 a few drivers will pit. Alpine hit this on the head as 5 drivers pit on lap 23 and Ocon manages to get ahead of them barring 1 by the time they came out of the pits. Stroll who was one of the 5 drivers who pitted was noted by the stewards for a pit lane infringement and said that they will investigate after the race for a potential dangerous release but nothing came out of this.

Leclerc was doing a great job holding off Perez behind him at this stage of the race given that Perez had much fresher rubber on his car up until Lap 26 where Leclerc goes wide in Degner 2 corner and opens the door for Perez to get an easy overtake and nearly opened the door for Norris as well. Given that he had got his tyres dirty he opted to pit on lap 27 and Norris followed him in closely behind which meant we got to see a pit crew race but Ferrari came out on top on that one as Leclerc was able to come back out in 6th while Norris came out in 8th as Russell slots between the pair. It didn’t take Norris long though as by lap 28 he was able to clear his fellow Brit as he goes onto the outside of turn 1.

On Lap 33 we see Piastri start the second and last wave of pitstops as he pits from 5th and comes out in 9th while Perez and Fernando Alonso follow suit one lap later, Perez manages to come out in 5th while Alonso comes out in 8th behind the Mercedes pair and ahead of Piastri. The leader, Max Verstappen also follows suit on lap 35 and comes in for his last stop of the race and comes out in 2nd behind Sainz who was yet to pit once more who also comes in one lap later on lap 37 and comes out in 7th place with some work for him to do in order to get back in the podium positions. Sainz started working on the overtakes straight away as he clears Hamilton by lap 39 and goes straight into 5th as Russell comes in for his final pit and Hamilton follows suit a lap later.

On lap 42 we had a bit of hope for late drama as we see a Yellow Flag in Sector 2 which could have meant a Safety Car but this was soon cleared as we see Logan Sargeant go straight onto the gravel in Degner 2 however managed to keep the engine running and managed to reverse back onto the track. This ruined Sargeant’s progress as he had to come into the pits to get rid of his mediums, he was on for fresh softs.

A few more overtakes took place while we see Sainz clearing Norris on Lap 44 and his teammate a lap later to get back onto the podium, while we also see Stroll putting some nice overtakes in the snake section of the track 2 laps in a row. A few further ahead than Stroll we see some action for 6th place as we see Piastri on the gearbox of his old teammate Alonso trying to overtake him for a few laps, but Alonso’s defence was too good for Piastri, and he was unable to get past him. This battle got Russell close however which put both Alonso and Piastri in danger to be overtaken so we see Alonso in the final stages of the race slow down a bit to keep Piastri in his DRS to help him defend against Russell which in turns helps Alonso from being attacked by Russell. This was all working well for Piastri until the last lap as Piastri goes wide in the chicane and that opened the door for Russell who moves into 7th and on the hunt for Alonso with only 1 lap to go. This was all in vain though as Alonso managed to hold on to 6th place.

Max Verstappen takes the chequered flag followed by Sergio Perez, Carlos Sainz, Charles Leclerc, Lando Norris, Fernando Alonso, George Russell, Oscar Piastri, Lewis Hamilton and Yuki Tsunoda formed the top 10. Tsunoda was able to get his first points at his home race which might have put a smile on his face and his fans at the track. Leclerc manages to get the Driver of the day award for his stellar drive from 8th to 4th place with a 1 stop race which seemed to be the quickest strategy in the end but unfortunately wasn’t quick enough to give him the podium.

Who do you think was the biggest winners and the biggest losers of the Japanese GP? We now head into a week break before we make a return to Shanghai after 4 years missing for the Chinese GP which will be the 1st Sprint weekend of the season.

Share this article with your friends

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *