2014 Japanese Grand Prix review

When I think back at this race my thoughts are with Jules Bianchi. I hope he will recover soon and that this won't have an impact on his racing in the future. It might even be that he won't return and that would be very sad.

Some drivers have lost their spark after an accident. Felipe Massa for example. He is good but he used to be better. Then there is Mika Häkkinen who was in a coma for a short period and won 2 championships after that. What about Niki Lauda? Everybody knows that story. Let's hope that Bianchi doesn't end up like Robert Kubica who never returned to Formula One.

The race itself was chaos for some teams. Ferrari and Williams for example. They had a great chance to score some good points but were left with scraps and a retirement (Fernando Alonso).

The Red Bulls took advantage of the other team's misfortune and managed to take a podium. I knew that Sebastian Vettel would be good here because he has always been good in Japan and the previous podium gave him extra motivation. He has also started to beat his teammate Daniel Ricciardo and I think he will continue to do so. Ricciardo is good but don't forget that Vettel is a four time world champion.

Some people don't respect Vettel because he has won his championships with a good car. It's not his fault that the car was good. You can not be a bad driver to win 4 championships.

This year Vettel has been in Ricciardo's shadow because the new car hasn't really fitted his driving style. Don't get me wrong, Daniel Ricciardo is a very good driver but so is Vettel. I have to remind you that I am not a Vettel fan so I am not saying this because I cheer for him or anything like that.

Mark my words Vettel will beat Ricciardo in the next race as well if the car doesn't break down or anything.

My last words of the race are these: I was not surprised that Hamilton won the race instead of Rosberg because this track and this win was so important to him just like I explained in my preview.

Once again let's hope that Bianchi recovers and continues to do what he loves to do which is racing.

Here are my predictions and the actual results:

Pole position: Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes - WRONG. Hamilton was 2nd and his teammate Rosberg was on pole.

Race:

1. Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes - CORRECT
2. Nico Rosberg, Mercedes - CORRECT
3. Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull - CORRECT

Fastest lap: Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes - CORRECT

Surprise: Romain Grosjean will have a surprisingly good race for a change. He likes this track. - WRONG. Didn't go so good for him in Japan. I guess the Lotus wasn't very good in the wet.

First to retire (5 bonus points in the PREDICTORS LEAGUE): Pastor Maldonado - WRONG. Alonso retired first.

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! like the Mercedes. 

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

FIA post-race press conference - Japan

Drivers: 1 - Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes); 2 - Nico Rosberg (Mercedes); 3 - Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull Racing)

PODIUM INTERVIEWS
(Conducted by Nigel Mansell) 

Q: What a race we just had ladies and gentlemen, a very tough one at the office for these gentlemen. Brilliant drives everybody. Lewis, your 30th win, my goodness me, how did you enjoy that? 
Lewis Hamilton: It was great. What a day it’s been. It’s been a very difficult weekend. Today, to be raining so much, it was very difficult, tricky conditions. We hope that Bianchi is OK. But we had a great crowd this weekend, as every year.

Q: Tell us about those hot laps, 15 or 16 laps before the end there. You were putting in some hot laps, a second or second and a half quicker than anyone? 
LH: Yeah, I really got into a groove. In terms of feeling it was very reminiscent of Silverstone 2008.

Q: Tell the fans what you really thought when you went off at the first turn when you were really pushing hard early in the race? 
LH: I was pushing to get by Nico and I had the DRS open and I forgot to turn it off. When I went into the corner the rear end stepped out. It was very, very close but I saved it.

Q: Well, a brilliant win. Nico, you did everything perfect, great pole position yesterday and then great drive. You were doing all the hard work, acting as the brake, because being out front is difficult isn’t it? 
Nico Rosberg: It’s been a good weekend for us as a team. Of course it’s great for us as a team to get a one-two. And you fans have been absolutely spectacular again this weekend, it’s very, very special to drive here and to really get an impression of the whole atmosphere here. Congrats to Lewis for winning today, of course with my thoughts at the moment with our colleagues Jules, because it seems quite serious, so I really wish him all the best.

Q: As we all do. Unfortunately, we don’t have any news about that at the moment. But brilliant drive and congratulations Nico. Seb, unbelievable drive, you made things very exciting with the Williams drivers, getting on the inside and then the outside. How did you enjoy that today? 
Sebastian Vettel: As they both touched on it was very, very tricky. Took a while to get the race started, waiting for the conditions but then I think it was very good fun. Concentration has to be very, very high when it’s wet; it’s so easy to do a mistake. In the end obviously we pitted, decided to go for fresh tyres, lost one position only. Obviously I got lucky to have the safety car coming before, so I’m quite lucky to be up here. Great race, we seemed to have great at some times as well. Overall, very happy and last but not least best to Jules Bianchi. 

PRESS CONFERENCE

Q: Lewis, an excellent race, the right result for you in very difficult conditions. 
LH: Yeah, absolutely. It’s been an interesting weekend. Obviously a great result for the team. I think we’re all very concerned about our colleague, Bianchi. Don’t really know what to say. But again, to have the result, this has been a great weekend with the car; qualifying obviously wasn’t perfect for me but generally the car was absolutely fantastic through the race and once I was passed Nico I was able to really manage the gap and enjoy the ride. Obviously didn’t finish the way we would have hoped but really, my prayers are with him (Bianchi) and his family.

Q: A great overtaking manoeuvre round the outside of Nico going down into the first corner; tell us about that. 
LH: Fairly straightforward, really. I had a lot more pace than Nico. This is not a very easy circuit to follow but fortunately I was able to get quite close and particularly in the last corner and I think perhaps he had a small oversteer moment out of the last corner and I didn’t. Obviously the DRS enabled me to get alongside. I was fairly confident with the balance of the car so I put it there and stuck it out. And after that it was really about trying to... you know, the whole approach changed after that because I was attacking, attacking and after that, I kind of took different lines and managed it differently. But it felt very reminiscent of a time years and years ago, of 2008, and it was a great feeling in that respect.

Q: And you had a couple of excursions but they didn’t really seem to hurt you at all. 
LH: Yeah, I only remember one of them but yeah, I went into turn one with the DRS open and there’s so much less downforce when that wing is open. You’ve got to remember to close it again and then I started to turn and brake and it was still open, so the back end stepped out. It was very, very close but yeah, kept hold of it, didn’t really lose too much time so fortunate.

Q: Nico, we heard you talking about a lot of oversteer, is that what the problem was throughout the race? 
NR: I was definitely not happy with my balance but I think we had pretty much the same set-up so Lewis must have had the same oversteer. I just wasn’t happy with that and tried to figure out a way to reduce that and found some improvements then with the pit stop, put down the front wing so that was a bit better but still not good so just need to look into that. But all in all, Lewis just did a better job today and deserves to win. OK, second place is damage limitation and taking everything into consideration, it was very, very difficult conditions out there on this track and everything so seven points lost to Lewis... you know, there’s worse than that.

Q: Sebastian, a late stop and we weren’t awfully certain if we’d see you or Daniel in here; it was a bit worrying with that late stop. 
SV: Yeah, obviously we didn’t know what happened. The safety car came out and I think we were aware that Adrian went off in turn seven and obviously it was difficult to see what happened after that. From a racing point of view, the safety car comes in and we saw that there was quite a good gap and so we decided to pit and lost only one position. Obviously, as it turned out with the red flag, we thought initially we were not on the podium, but as the rules are similar to... I think a little bit of confusion. Five years ago in Malaysia I think we had a similar scenario and we found ourselves back in third. Obviously it was great to be on the podium, this is my favourite track, it’s for sure very nice in those tricky conditions. In the end, I don’t think it really matters. I think the most important thing, as we’re all probably thinking, is that we hope the best for Jules, obviously currently not in the best shape but we hope that we get some very good news very soon.

QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

Q: (Michael Schmidt - Auto, Motor und Sport) Question to all three of you: you were out in the last few laps on intermediates as well when the accidents happened. How slippery was it and was it already too wet for intermediates at that period of the race? 
LH: For me personally it wasn’t. There was more and more rain coming and you could see the circuit... you started to see more reflections and so you could see that it was increasing - the amount of water that was on the track, but it wasn’t... I didn’t notice any difference so I was still able to maintain the same pace. I would imagine that we would probably have been able to finish on those tyres since there was only ten laps left. Yeah, but the tyres performed quite well today.
NR: Yeah, it was fine but the thing is that we have so much more downforce than some other people, so I can imagine that maybe for them... because it was starting to get a little bit more difficult for us and maybe for them, with so much less downforce, it was already on the limit of needing to go to full wets. That’s very possible and I myself was a little bit surprised to hear that other people were already going for full wets but I guess that must be the explanation.
SV: Yeah, it was borderline. At some stage, towards the end, just before the safety car, it started to rain a little bit less with a little bit less intensity. Also when the race was stopped it was just a drizzle and a couple of laps before it was getting quite bad, that’s why we decided to pit and we decided to go for intermediates again. I think the problem, in general, is that once there is a lot of water, visibility is very poor and once there’s too much water, the inter doesn’t work anymore and the extreme wet only has a very, very narrow window where it works because also, with a lot of water on the track, water drainage on the extreme tyres is not as good as it probably should be, so that’s why I think the window is narrow and that’s why other people probably decided to pit. For us, I think it was borderline but for sure, the better your car, the better - Nico explained it well - the better it is for you.

Q: (Frederic Ferret - L’Equipe) Nico and Lewis, do you have any kind of explanation of the difference of balance and settings for the car and the difference during the race between the two of you? 
NR: We had pretty much the same set-up, so I’m sure the balance was similar for Lewis and I just struggled more with it I suppose: a lot of oversteer and I don’t like that.
LH: Yeah, we had pretty much exactly the same set-up so as Nico said, maybe he took out some wing later on in the race. I didn’t really have any problems with the balance of the car. It was oversteery but it was manageable.

(source: f1.com)

F1-4-LIFE PREDICTORS LEAGUE STANDINGS AFTER THE JAPANESE GP

1. AE (F1-4-LIFE) -> 89 points
2. Larry Gallagher -> 86 points
3. Darcy P Lang -> 72 points
4. Peter McLaren -> 72 points
5. Rich Kewell -> 70 points
6. Regina Ehrnrooth -> 69 points
7. Elliott Robson -> 64 points
8. MW (F1-4-LIFE) -> 56 points
9. Dylan Curry -> 47 points
10. Jon Yountz -> 46 points
11. Jaakko livari -> 44 points
12. Anthony Brian Ayrton Senna -> 42 points
13. JT (F1-4-LIFE) -> 40 points
14. Jonathan Riggs -> 36 points
15. Liutauras Raulynatis -> 29 points
16. Leonardo Machado -> 27 points
17. Rab Mckinney -> 24 points
18. Jake Lakin -> 19 points
19. Martin Francis -> 16 points
20. Martin Mihalic -> 14 points
21. Shaun Magnano -> 14 points
22. David Perry -> 13 points
23. Abijith Kv -> 13 points
24. Leo Harry Gowing -> 11 points
25. Flavio Wallis -> 10 points
26. Jayson Nufc Nicholson -> 10 points
27. Craig Whitehead -> 10 points
28. Joel Booth -> 9 points
29. Paolo Gagliardi -> 9 points
30. Steven Peli -> 6 points
31. Jared Tallott -> 5 points
32. Mark Newman -> 5 points
33. Ryan Lane -> 3 points
34. Will Leahy -> 3 points
35. Craig Lymer -> 3 points
36. Coilin Higgins -> 3 points
37. Craig Taylor -> 3 points
38. Christopher Damien Wiseman -> 1 point
39. Vitor Lobo -> 0 points
40. MH (F1-4-LIFE) -> 0 points
41. Pippaa Chilton -> 0 points
42. Richard Gehl -> 0 points
43. Junaid Khan -> 0 points
44. Ewan Darlington -> 0 points
45. Chris Kemp -> 0 points
46. Saadi Tate -> 0 points
47. Theodore Dickman -> 0 points
48. Josh Dennis -> 0 points
49. Brian Dodgy Discs Hughes -> 0 points
50. John Hersam -> 0 points
51. Elaine Hannon -> 0 points
52. Natalie Bandee -> 0 points

POINTS: 1st - 3
2nd - 5
3rd - 10

+ possible bonus points
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! like the Mercedes.

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.

The drivers championship standings after the Japanese GP

1	Lewis Hamilton	British	Mercedes	266
2	Nico Rosberg	German	Mercedes	256
3	Daniel Ricciardo	Australian	Red Bull Racing-Renault	193
4	Sebastian Vettel	German	Red Bull Racing-Renault	139
5	Fernando Alonso	Spanish	Ferrari	133
6	Valtteri Bottas	Finnish	Williams-Mercedes	130
7	Jenson Button	British	McLaren-Mercedes	82
8	Nico Hulkenberg	German	Force India-Mercedes	76
9	Felipe Massa	Brazilian	Williams-Mercedes	71
10	Sergio Perez	Mexican	Force India-Mercedes	46
11	Kimi Räikkönen	Finnish	Ferrari	45
12	Kevin Magnussen	Danish	McLaren-Mercedes	39
13	Jean-Eric Vergne	French	STR-Renault	21
14	Romain Grosjean	French	Lotus-Renault	8
15	Daniil Kvyat	Russian	STR-Renault	8
16	Jules Bianchi	French	Marussia-Ferrari	2
17	Adrian Sutil	German	Sauber-Ferrari	0
18	Marcus Ericsson	Swedish	Caterham-Renault	0
19	Pastor Maldonado	Venezuelan	Lotus-Renault	0
20	Esteban Gutierrez	Mexican	Sauber-Ferrari	0
21	Max Chilton	British	Marussia-Ferrari	0
22	Kamui Kobayashi	Japanese	Caterham-Renault	0
23	Andre Lotterer	German	Caterham-Renault	0

The constructors championship standings after the Japanese GP

1	Mercedes	522
2	Red Bull Racing-Renault	332
3	Williams-Mercedes	201
4	Ferrari	178
5	Force India-Mercedes	122
6	McLaren-Mercedes	121
7	STR-Renault	29
8	Lotus-Renault	8
9	Marussia-Ferrari	2
10	Sauber-Ferrari	0
11	Caterham-Renault	0