Japanese Grand Prix Tag

By Luis Torres, Staff Writer Arguably the three most intriguing Formula 1 grand prix circuits on the calendar becomes the latest blow to the 70th season due to the pandemic. The FIA announced Friday morning that those intriguing tracks were the Azerbaijan, Singapore and Japanese Grand Prix, with the latter meant they won’t be heading to the “Land of the Rising Sun” for the first time since 1986. “These decisions have been taken due to the different challenges our promoters face in those countries. In Singapore and Azerbaijan the long leadRead More

By Luis Torres, Staff Writer The FIA disqualified both Renault F1 Team drivers Daniel Ricciardo and Nico Hulkenberg from their finishing orders in the Japanese Grand Prix Wednesday due to an illegal brake bias system. Consequently, Renault lost nine Constructors’ Championship points. With Ricciardo and Hulkenberg being stripped from sixth (eight points) and tenth-place (one point) results. It meant SportPesa Racing Point’s Lance Stroll and Scuderia Toro Rosso’s Danil Kvyat were promoted to the top-10 finishing order. Stroll’s team were the ones who protested after Suzuka as they deemed Renault breachedRead More

By FIA Valtteri Bottas beat slow starting Sebastian Vettel away from the lights to set up a dominant Japanese Grand Prix victory, which allied to third place Lewis Hamilton took Mercedes to a sixth consecutive FIA Formula One Constructors’ Championship title. When the lights went out for the start it was Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas who reacted quickest. He rounded the slow-starting Ferraris of pole sitter Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc and stole the lead metres after the starting line. Initially it looked like Vettel might have moved outside his gridRead More

By FIA Sebastian Vettel claimed the 57thpole position of his career as Ferrari locked out the front row at Suzuka in a delayed qualifying session for the Japanese Grand Prix. Mercedes will start from row two, with Valtteri Bottas third ahead of team-mate Lewis Hamilton. The arrived of Typoon Hagibis yesterday caused the cancellation of all track action at the Mie Prefecture track and qualifying got underway on Sunday morning. The first segment began in disjointed fashion with two red flags in quick succession. First Williams’ Robert Kubica went ontoRead More

By FIA After setting the pace in the first free practice session at Suzuka, Valtteri Bottas continued at the top of the timesheet in FP2, beating team-mate Lewis Hamilton by a tenth of a second, with Max Verstappen third for Red Bull Racing, just under two tenths further back. Bottas’s best time came at the second attempt, with the Finn posting a lap of 1:27.785 after his first run was compromised by a spin at the end of his warm-up lap. Bottas lost control of his car out of theRead More

By FIA Valtteri Bottas led the way for Mercedes as the championship-leading team took the top two positions in the opening practice session for the Japanese Grand Prix. Prior to the start of the session the FIA confirmed that due to the approach of Typhoon Hagibis all activities scheduled to take place at Suzuka tomorrow on Saturday, 12 October have been cancelled. Qualifying will now take place at 10am local time on Sunday morning, with the race scheduled for its normal 2.10pm start. The FIA later issued a further updatingRead More

By Luis Torres, Staff Writer The 69th season of Formula One has officially concluded, and Mercedes continued to steamroll the competition in the Hybrid Era. Lewis Hamilton once again proved to have risen on the occasion as Sebastian Vettel faded away due to Ferrari’s costly errors that eliminated him from the championship race. Not only that, the 2019 season is starting to look clear with key names having no choice but to become a test driver or find different ventures in favor of even younger drivers and even the comeback for theRead More

By FIA Lewis Hamilton moved closer to a fifth FIA Formula 1 World Championship title with a dominant Japanese Grand Prix win ahead of team-mate Valtteri Bottas and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen. Sebastian Vettel battled back to sixth place at the chequered flag after a collision with Verstappen early in the race dropped him to the rear of the field. The result means that Hamilton will carry a 67-point lead over Vettel to the next race, round 18 of 21, in the USA. Hamilton held his advantage at the start,Read More

By FIA Mercedes Lewis Hamilton took his eighth pole position of the season at Suzuka and the 80th of his career, while title rival Sebastian Vettel faces a ninth-place race start after a troubled final segment of qualifying for the Japanese Grand Prix. Valtteri Bottas will start alongside Hamilton in the second Mercedes, while Red Bull’s Max Verstappen with start at the front of row three, alongside the second Ferrari of Kimi Räikkönen. Vettel established an early benchmark in Q1 with a lap of 1:29.049, more than half a second clearRead More

By FIA Lewis Hamilton made it a clean sweep in practice for the Japanese Grand Prix, taking top spot in FP3 at Suzuka, just over a tenth of a second ahead of Sebastian Vettel, in a session brought to an early end when Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg crashed out. Hulkenberg, sweeping through the Esses on a qualifying run, took much kerb on a track still damp from an earlier rain show and spun. He went into the barriers on the right-hand side of the track, causing substantial damage to the rearRead More