Five Formula 1 Winners & Losers: Japanese Grand Prix

Photo from Motorsport Images

I tried my best.

I took a mid day nap. Got myself an energy drink. I was ready to stay up till 1 A.M. EST to watch the Japanese Grand Prix.

But my tiredness hit me like a wall, and a red flag due to weather knocked me out.

But fear not! I recorded the race and watched it this morning.

Because I’m thorough.

Anywho, here are the five winners and losers from the Japanese Grand Prix.

Losers

5. Alexander Albon

Albon’s hectic afternoon ended on the very first lap when his gearbox just simply stopped working.

It’s always tough when your race ends before you even have a chance to make an impact.

4. Carlos Sainz

It feels cruel putting Sainz here, because that track was a nightmare to deal with and he hydroplaned into an accident. It wasn’t his fault by any stretch.

Still, it ruined a likely good day for the Spaniard.

3. Mick Schumacher

Eh. This one is very harsh too.

Because it definitely wasn’t Mick’s fault, and it was a good move by the team to keep Mick on track in worse tires in hopes for a safety car to essentially guarantee a top 5 finish.

But it didn’t work, and Mick was forced to pit for intermediate tires well after everyone else did, meaning there was no hope for him result wise than last of the classified finishers.

Tough luck.

2. Charles Leclerc

The championship is officially done and dusted, and even if it wasn’t officially, it was a while ago.

Still, it was mistakes like Leclerc made on the final lap that essentially handed Max Verstappen the championship.

Leclerc had an easy 2nd place finish. There was no way Checo could have caught him.

And then he missed the final corner, cut off Checo, and got a 5 second time penalty to end up finishing 3rd.

It wouldn’t have mattered anyway, but it’s stuff like that which Leclerc needs to fix to fight for the championship next year.

1. The FIA

The 2014 Japanese Grand Prix was the last time we lost a Formula 1 driver, as Jules Bianchi had an accident involving a tractor on track trying to remove a crashed car.

It was horrible, and led to changes within race control on how to better manage accidents within the race.

And at the exact same track where we lost Bianchi in 2014, and in the exact same conditions, we had another tractor on the race track while cars were going full speed.

Thankfully, Pierre Gasly didn’t lose control of the car in the tricky conditions and avoided the tractor, but the fact that it happened in the first place is a failure by the FIA, and completely unacceptable.

Winners

5. Sergio Perez

Checo just kept his head down, ran a good race, and benefited from a mistake to finish 2nd.

Other than Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton, he may have the most safe job in Formula 1.

He does exactly what Red Bull needs him to do.

4. Esteban Ocon

Alpine has shown they have a really good engine which helped Ocon a lot, but even still it is very impressive to come home 4th while keeping Lewis Hamilton in the rain behind you.

3. Nicholas Latifi

A brilliant strategy call got Latifi on intermediate tires first alongside Sebastian Vettel, and it led to Latifi finishing 9th.

His first points of the year!

2. Sebastian Vettel

And as I said above, Vettel pit at the same time Latifi did.

The difference is, Vettel finished 6th and came back from last on the grid after a spin on the opening lap.

So he gets the higher spot.

1. Max Verstappen

Last year, before the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix finale, I wrote about how Verstappen should have had the title locked up.

He had the advantage, a better car (this is for some reason up for debate still and I’m not sure why. The Red Bull was better than the Mercedes for 75% of the year last year), but he was simply too reckless, which let Lewis Hamilton back into the battle.

Verstappen still won the title, but he made it a lot harder than it needed to be.

This year, we saw a different Max Verstappen.

He was no longer reckless, and instead made sure to keep the car on track and finishing, as opposed to battle Charles Leclerc too hard.

We saw that exact strategy in the first two races of the year, and it continued onward throughout the season.

And while Leclerc made mistakes at Imola, France and other tracks as well, Verstappen was the model of consistency.

It didn’t hurt that he was also in a better car, but it meant that instead of taking the title race to the final race, he clinched with 4 races to go.

An extremely deserving 2nd World Championship for Max Verstappen.