2017 Japanese Grand Prix review

The start was clean but you could see early on that Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel had power issues. The car was not as fast as it could have been. Half a lap was behind us and Red Bull's Max Verstappen already overtook Vettel for 2nd place and Esteban Ocon overtook Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo.

Toro Rosso's Carlos Sainz drove off track into the barriers and had to retire. It was his last race for Toro Rosso because he will replace Jolyon Palmer at Renault in the next GP.

Kimi Räikkönen had to drive his Ferrari off track when Reanult's Nico Hulkenberg didn't give him any room and pushed him further off. The Finn didn't complain so the stewards didn't even investigate the incident.

When the 2nd lap started Ocon, Ricciardo and Mercedes' Valtteri Bottas overtook Vettel almost at the same time. It looked that Vettel had very bad issues. I was sure that he was going to retire. A 4-time world champion does not let anyone pass him like that in normal circumstances.

When the 4th lap started Vettel was overtaken by Force India's Sergio Perez and Williams' Felipe Massa was close behind! Now Ferrari told Vettel to box and retire. The championship is almost decided now. How can Vettel beat Lewis Hamilton now after this? Only if Hamilton retires from two races and Vettel wins them both I guess.

After the pitstops we had Hamilton in the lead followed by Verstappen, Ricciardo, Bottas and Räikkönen. This was the final standings at the checkered flag.

Here are my predictions and the results:

Pole position: Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes - CORRECT

Race:

1. Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes - CORRECT
2. Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes - WRONG. Verstappen was 2nd and Bottas was 4th.
3. Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull - CORRECT

Fastest lap: Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes - WRONG. His teammate Bottas was fastest.

Surprise: Lance Stroll, Williams - He retired due to a technical issue.

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, JI & PM. 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