Wednesday, September 23, 2015

2015 Japanese Grand Prix preview


Hello again! It's the 27th time Suzuka hosts an F1 event and it seems that this GP is here to stay. So many championships have been decided here and so many legendary memories.

Take a look at Ayrton Senna's pole lap from 1988:



My best memories are the Senna-Prost battles in 1988-1990, Häkkinen-Schumacher in 1998-2000 and also Kimi Räikkönen overtaking Fisichella on the last lap and winning the race in 2005.


Then of course last year Jules Bianchi had his accident which lead to his death later on this year. Very sad stuff and I will be very disappointed if they don't do something to remember him this weekend. I know they already had one but still... this is the place where it happened. Everybody will be thinking about him. I hope the safety is better this year.

Jules Bianchi


Let's move on to something less sad...

Lewis Hamilton has won the Japanese GP twice. He won last year and also the very wet Japanese GP back in 2007 only it was at Fuji, not at Suzuka. This track is more important for Hamilton than Fuji because his idol, Ayrton Senna, secured his championship here more than once. Hamilton will be very hungry for this win. Even more because of Ferrari's win in the last race.

My guess is if Hamilton's car works he will have a perfect weekend and Sebastian Vettel will be right behind him. 

Vettel has always been good here and he got more hungry after the last win. He will beat Nico Rosberg here but it won't be easy.


Here are my predictions:

Pole position: Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes

Race:

  1. Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes
  2. Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari
  3. Nico Rosberg, Mercedes

Fastest lap: Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes

Surprise: Vettel will beat Rosberg in the points and become Hamilton's biggest threat. Ferrari is now really starting to compete against Mercedes.


Post your own predictions to our F1-4-LIFE PREDICTORS LEAGUE!




The rules:

POINTS:  1st - 3  2nd - 5  3rd - 10 

HOW IT WORKS: the aim of the game is simply predict who comes where in the race (top3). A total of 18 points can be won on a race day. If you get winner and and 3rd place right but 2nd wrong you get 13 points same if you get 1 correct. eg. 2nd you get 5 points. If a driver wins the race and you said he would come 2nd or 3rd no points would be awarded. Same if he came in another position, and you predicted that wrong. A table will be posted up every race weekend. The point scoring system will change once the cars become more competitive. Everyone will say a merc 1,2 so it won't be close or fun. 

HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR PREDICTIONS: send an email to f14lifeblog@gmail.com or message the Facebook page to submit your predictions. You have until lights out to make them. If you submit them when the race has started they won't count. So be quick!

THE PRIZE: the winner of the league will win themselves a admin place on the F1 4 LIFE page along side AE, JT, MW & MH. If you don't want to be an admin you are welcome to participate anyway. We may also come up with some other prize if it helps. 

That's it for today and if you want to send me feedback then email me: f14lifeblog@gmail.com