By William Hewitt

With the Japanese Grand Prix returning after 2 years away from the sport, a soaked Suzuka circuit raised questions of whether or not the race would go ahead, but it did. The race started at 14:00 local time, 6:00AM UK time, forcing British fans wake up early if they wanted to catch it live. As the lights went, huge amounts of water were sprayed up from the cars’ full wet tyres, making visibility extremely poor. Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc got a good start, immediately putting pressure on the championship leader Max Verstappen, but the Dutchman managed to hold onto the lead through and after Turn 1. Lance stroll got an amazing start, moving from 18^th to 11^th after moving to the inside of the track on the grippier asphalt. The same could not be said for his teammate, Sebastian Vettel. The four-time world champion had a great initial launch, but poor visibility saw him turning into Fernando Alonso and spinning out into Turn 1. More trouble followed as Carlos Sainz aquaplaned straight into the barriers at the hairpin, ending his race. Zhou Guanyu also had trouble, spinning, and nearly taking out Alex Albon, who soon pulled over with an engine failure. Due to Sainz’s crash a safety car was put in place, but it quickly turned into a red flag due to the heavy rain.

A major talking point for the race was an incident involving a tractor that was removing Sainz’s car. Pierre Gasly, who recently signed with Alpine for 2023, was forced to pit after a large advertising board damaged his front wing following Sainz’s crash. On his out-lap he was catching the safety car queue when he passed the Ferrari on the side of the road, but not only the Ferrari was there, a recovery vehicle was there removing the car, and it was positioned on the track. This was a big problem as it was tragically reminiscent of a similar incident in 2014 which resulted in the tragic death of Jules Bianchi, friend of Pierre and godfather to Charles Leclerc. Pierre was understandably upset as well as many other drivers who spoke out on social media, and since then the FIA has launched an investigation into the incident.

The Grand Prix restarted around two hours later, with a rolling start led by Max Verstappen. Everyone restarted on full wet tyres, but with the track drying it became clear that intermediates would be faster. Sebastian Vettel and Nicholas Latifi were the first to pit for the green tyres, pulling into the pits straight away on the restart. With 37 minutes left to go, Lando Norris and Valtteri Bottas also made the change to intermediates, and a minute later, race and championship leader Max Verstappen also pitted, alongside Leclerc. At this point most of the others flooded into the pits, realising the intermediates would be much faster. Not everyone though, Fernando Alonso stayed out and took the lead of the race, as well as Haas’s Mick Schumacher, Alfa Romeo’s Zhou Guanyu and McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo, but Zhou, Alonso and Ricciardo soon also made their stops. Unfortunately for Mick, the full wet tyres were simply too slow compared to the intermediates and he began to tumble down the order. The early change for Vettel and Latifi proved to be a good decision as they leapt up the order and found themselves in sixth and ninth with 31 minutes left.

From then on, a thrilling battle broke out between Lewis Hamilton and Esteban Ocon, the 7-time world champion held back by the lack of straight-line speed of his Mercedes, making him unable to pass the Alpine, which was one of the fastest cars in a straight line for the weekend. George Russell made up places after his poor pitstop and managed to pass Alonso as the Spaniard pitted again for fresh tyres. This was short-lived however, as Alonso’s new intermediates meant he powered passed the young Mercedes driver on the final lap, and crossed the line 0.011 seconds behind his old rival Sebastian Vettel.

On the final few laps a more important showdown occurred, between last week’s race winner Sergio Perez and Charles Leclerc. Leclerc positioned his Ferrari perfectly for most of the battle, holding the Red Bull at bay, but on the final lap a lockup saw him travel straight on at the final chicane, raising the eyebrows of the stewards as the Monegasque sped back onto the track to maintain his position.

Verstappen won the race nearly 30 seconds ahead of Leclerc, but it was only after his interview that he discovered he was champion, after a five second penalty was awarded to Leclerc, dropping him down to third place behind Perez. The confusion grew however, as everybody had thought that due to the shortened race, full points would not be awarded, but rather reduced points. However, according to Article 6.5 of the FIA sporting regulations, if the race is restarted after a red-flag, full points would be awarded regardless of the race distance. Thus, Max Verstappen is the 2022 World Champion, though the way he became it was somewhat anticlimactic.

(photo by sky sports)