2008 Japanese Grand Prix Race Report

by effwun - FOAS #65

Fernando Alonso took a second stunning and somewhat unexpected win at the Fuji circuit after the main title protagonists - Felipe Massa and Lewis Hamilton - were involved in a pair of incidents each, including an incident with each other, and both were on the receiving end of a drive-through penalty. Massa would finish the race in 7th place, after a post-race penalty was handed down to Sebastien Bourdais; Hamilton would finish in 12th. Alonso shared the podium with Robert Kubica and Kimi Raikkonen, who had a heated battle with each other in the closing stages of the race, and Alonso's team mate Piquet came home fourth to add Renault's glory. It was a disastrous race for McLaren, though, after Heikki Kovalainen retired with engine problems.

As is usual, it was a race between the McLarens and Ferraris in P1 - Hamilton was fastest, a tenth-and-a-half faster than Massa, followed by Kovalainen, then Raikkonen. But a portent of things to come as the fact that Alonso and Piquet were 5th and 6th fastest, with Alonso just half a second slower than Hamilton.

In P2, there was a bit of a surprise - Timo Glock was fastest in the Toyota. It was almost certainly showboating for the home crowd (remembering, of course, that Toyota own the Fuji circuit). With that in mind, the man who was second fastest was probably the most impressive, and that man was Fernando Alonso - just 4 one hundredths slower than Glock, and 4 one hundredths faster than Hamilton in third place. Massa was fourth fastest and Raikkonen was fifth fastest, followed by a hard-charging Mark Webber and home favourite Kazuki Nakajima.

On the evidence of P2, it was looking like it was a going to be a close qualifying and race - one second covered 1st through 18th place. It wasn't quite as competitive in P3 because, as is usual, some drivers were concentrating on their qualifying set-up, and some were concentrating on their race set-up but a second covered 1st through 13th place. Robert Kubica showed his hand by posting the fastest time in P3, ahead of Timo Glock, who continued to show a good turn of speed at the Toyota home track. Behind them were Piquet, Heidfeld, Nakajima and Coulthard; Massa was 7th fastest, Alonso 9th, Hamilton 11th, Kovalainen 15th, and Raikkonen 16th.

And so came qualifying, and there were surprises aplenty. Ok, so it was no surprise that the two Force India cars were eliminated from Q1, but more could have been expected from the Hondas at their "home" grand prix. It was definitely a surprise to see Nick Heidfeld in 16th place, and thus eliminated from Q1. Heidfeld would later blame his poor performance on his decision to stay on the harder prime tyres for his last run.

Q2 saw Coulthard, Piquet, Webber, Nakajima, and Rosberg eliminated. It was a tight battle to get into Q3 - less than a second covered the top ten, and Coulthrad missed out by just 8 hundredths.

So it came down to Q3. It looked like it was going to be a McLaren vs Ferrari battle as usual, and indeed it was. However, Massa struggled in the final qualifying session, later revealing that he suffered from a lack of grip due to abusing his tyres too much on his out lap. In the end, it was Hamilton who took pole position by two tenths, with a lap that McLaren team boss Ron Dennis called Hamilton's best ever. Kimi Raikkonen would start second, ahead of Kovalainen and the impressive Alonso. The rest of the top ten was rounded out by Massa, Kubica, Trulli, Glock (who couldn't translate his practice performances into qualifying laps), Vettel, and Bourdais.

Come Sunday, the weather was cool but dry, in contrast the monsoon rains that afflicted the 2007 race. There was a general feeling that the cool conditions would favour the McLarens, who are well know for being able to get heat into their tyres quickly, and disadvantage the Ferraris.

So the cars lined up on the grid, and the lights went out. Hamilton got a poor start and was immediately swamped by Raikkonen, who ducked to the left and took the lead from Hamilton. In a frantic effort to regain the advantage, Hamilton jerked to the right out of Raikkonen's slipstream, and into the path of his team mate who had to take avoiding action. Hamilton was on the inside for the first corner, but left his braking impossibly late. He smoked both of his front tyres, but couldn't get the car slowed down in time for the corner. He overshot the corner.

Chaos ensued. Raikkonen, on the outside of Hamilton, had nowhere to go but off track. He received a substantial nudge from countryman Kovalainen and dropped several places (losing out to Kubica, Kovalainen, Alonso, and Trulli) in the process. Further back, David Coulthard was tagged on both the left and right hand side. One of the collisions broke his right-rear suspension, and his car was pitched into a spin. He had a hard contact with the tyre barrier on the outside of the track, more or less destroying the car, but Coulthard was unhurt.

So, Robert Kubica led the race, with Alonso second and Kovalainen third, whilst Massa was 5th, with Hamilton just behind him. As bad as the race start had been for Hamilton, it was about to get a lot worse. Going into the turn 10/11 Dunlop chicane, Felipe Massa overshot the first part of the corner. This allowed Hamilton to sneak by opportunistically. Hamilton took the racing line for the next part of the corner, but Massa didn't yield, and tagged the left-rear wheel of Hamilton's car, pitching him into a spin. Massa continued (and the Ferrari crew were seen rather ungraciously celebrating in the pits), but Hamilton dropped to the back of the pack. To compound the misery, Hamilton pitted immediately - it turned out that he had flat-spotted his tyres so badly at the first corner, that he had worn the tyres through to the cords.

Worse was yet to come for the Englishman. It was soon announced that the first corner incident was to be investigated, and in due course he was issued a drive-through penalty. Massa too received a drive-through penalty for the collision with Hamilton.

Whilst all of that was going on, somehow a lot of debris managed to get strewn on the start/finish straight. Adrian Sutil ran over the debris, and suffered a puncture towards the end of the start/fisnish straight on the next lap. Timo Glock also retired from the race, and in short order Heikki Kovalainen ground to a halt with engine failure.

Robert Kubica had been in the lead of the race, but pitted at the end of lap 17, handing the lead to Alonso. Alonso pitted at the end of the next lap, and his stop was significantly shorter than Kubica's. Alonso was able to leap-frog Kubica. However, the Renault team informed Alonso that Kubica had five more laps of fuel on board, and that if he were to stand any chance of winning the race, he would have to push like hell to build up a lead before he pitted, knowing that Kubica could run longer. What followed was an absolute demonstration drive from Alonso.

As the pits stops cycled through, first Trulli, then Bourdais, then Nelsinho Piquet took the lead, but as they peeled off Alonso regained the lead. Fernando then ripped off a series of incredibly consistent lap times in the low 1:19s, gapping Kubica at the rate of around half a second per lap. As it would turn out, Kubica was struggling with turn-in understeer and on-throttle oversteer, and was losing ground on Alonso (plus falling into the clutches of Raikkonen).

Meanwhile, Felipe Massa was clawing his way back through the field after his drive-through penalty. By lap 42, he was up into eighth place, and into the points.

Up front, Alonso was flying in an attempt to build a gap to Kubica. He set fastest laps of the race before pitting on lap 43 with a 12 second lead, taking on the softer option tyre. He rejoined the race in 6th place, but would climb back up the order as the pit stops cycled through. What was crucial was the gap to Kubica, who now lead the race. On lap 46, Kubica pitted. It turned out that he only had 3 laps more fuel on board than Alonso. He rejoined in 7th place - behind Alonso. Alonso had done it - he retained a comfortable lead after the final pit stops, and he was able to do it because of the series of fast laps that he put in during the middle stint of the race.

The action was not over though. After having worked his way into the points, Massa got involved in yet another tangle on the track. On lap 51, Sebastien Bourdais pitted, and he exited the pits alongside Massa. Bourdais had the inside line for turn 1, but Massa was lighter and at full speed. So Massa barrelled into turn 1, turned down to the apex, and collided with Bourdais, sending the Brazilian into a spin. Massa had been flying up until that point, setting the fastest lap of the race in the process. He recovered from the spin and continued, then took his final pit stop and would drop to tenth.

Meanwhile, an almighty tussle was developing between second placed Kubica and third placed Raikkonen. Raikkonen made several attempts to outbreak the Pole at the end of the start/finish straight, but Kubica defended brilliantly. On lap 54, Raikkonen managed to squeeze by at the exit of turn 1, but Kubica had the inside line for the next corner. Kubica held his line and force Raikkonen to go the long way round, which actually meant Raikkonen running off course. From here on, Raikkonen's challenge evaporated.

Because of their scrap, Piquet was able to close on the Kubica/Raikkonen battle, and looked as though he could mount a challenge on Raikkonen before he ran off track and dropped back.

After his stop, Massa was flying and set a new fastest lap of the race. He breezed past Heidfeld for ninth place, and set about Mark Webber in eighth place. He caught the Aussie at the rate of two seconds per lap. With two laps to go, Massa lined up a pass on the Aussie at the end of the start/finish straight. Webber defended the inside line, but Massa went even further to the inside, running over the painted chevrons at the pit lane exit and using the pit lane itself to complete the pass. It was a bold move, akin to Mansell's pass on Berger in Hungary in 1992, and it got Massa into the points. Ultimately, Massa would actually finish 7th after the stewards gave Bourdais a 25 second post-race penalty for the collision between he and Massa.

But it was Alonso's day. He drove a superb race, drove hard and fast when he needed to and took his second win in as many races, again surprising many. The Singapore win may have been down to a healthy dose of luck, but this win was down to pure driving skill and speed. As fresh and interesting as it has been to see Alonso win the last two races, it must surely be complicating his decision on where to go next year.

- effwun

Final Classification
Pos. Driver Time Pos. Driver Time
1. Alonso 1:30:21.892 11. Rosberg +62.0
2. Kubica +5.2 12. Hamilton +78.9
3. Raikkonen +6.4 13. Barrichello +1 Lap
4. Piquet +20.5 14. Button +1 Lap
5. Trulli +23.7 15. Nakajima +1 Lap
6. Vettel +39.2 16. Fisichella Lap 22
7. Massa +46.1 17. Kovalainen Lap 17
8. Webber +50.8 18. Sutil Lap 9
9. Heidfeld +54.1 19. Glock Lap 7
10. Bourdais +59.0 20. Coulthard Lap 1

Fastest lap - Felipe Massa: 1:18.426 (lap 55)

The Alternative Podium Ceremony

1st - The John Watson Award for most places gained in the race: Nelsinho Piquet (1th - 4th, 8 places).

2nd - The Olivier Grouillard Award for best roadblock: Robert Kubica (for superbly defending off Raikkonen).

3rd - The Philippe Alliot Award for most pointless crash: Felipe Massa (for the Bourdais collision, which was rather avoidable).

Constructors - The David Coulthard Award for outstanding achievement in the field of complaining: Lewis Hamilton ("I'm disappointed with the way I'm treated", to paraphrase).

And this week's honorary award - The Dale Earnhardt Memorial "take that, jerk!" award: Felipe Massa, for punting Hamilton off. Unintentionally of course...