2007 Japanese Grand Prix - Report

By Effwun - FOAS #65

Lewis Hamilton took a stunning victory in very tricky wet conditions at the Fuji Speedway to extend his world championship lead to 12 points, after teammate and fellow title contender Fernando Alonso crashed out of the race ignominiously, succumbing to dreadful weather. The race was marred, however, by yet more controversy involving both Ferrari and Lewis Hamilton. The former were caught out by a last minute stipulation from Race Control; the latter was embroiled in a protest over erratic driving during a safety car period.

Nevertheless, the weekend started well for the main title contenders - the two Ferraris of Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa were quickest in P1, followed by the two McLarens, with Hamilton the slowest of the four. The Williams cars of Rosberg and Wurz went well and placed 5th and 7th respectively, sandwiching Kubica in 6th. P2 saw the McLarens at the top of the timesheets, and this time it was Hamilton fastest with a time of 1:18.743 - two tenths faster than his teammate. They were followed by Massa, nearly 8 tenths back; Raikonnen was 5th fastest, behind the Toyota of Jarno Trulli.

On Saturday the weather took a turn for the worse - heavy rain and thick fog enveloped the circuit. The start of the session was delayed several times in the hope of the weather improving, and in the end the most laps run by anyone was 3, which both of the Williams drivers completed and consequently Alex Wurz and Nico Rosberg headed the time sheet. Kimi Raikkonen did not even complete a lap before the session was abandoned due to the poor conditions - the medical helicopter did not have the requisite visibility to take off.

So came qualifying. The wet conditions persisted, but the visibility improved enough for the medical helicopter to be able to fly, so the session was green-lit. Q1 again saw the usual suspects eliminated - Barrichello, Wurz, Davidson, Sutil, Sato, and Yamamoto. Q2 was disappointing for the two Toyotas, who must have been hoping for better than 14th and 16th on the grid at their "home" track. Those eliminated were Fisichella, Kovalainen, Coulthard, Trulli, Liuzzi, and Schumacher, who failed to set a time. It all came down to Q3 then, and in the end it was a battle between the two McLarens - Lewis Hamilton took pole ahead of Fernando Alonso, Kimi Raikkonen, and Felipe Massa. The rest of the top ten were rounded out by Heidfeld, Rosberg, Button, Webber, Vettel (who seemed to excel in the wet conditions), and Kubica. However, fuel loads/strategies seemed to be split, with possibly the top four on a two stop strategy and the rest on a one stop strategy.

The grid was set for the race on Sunday. However, the weather did not cooperate. The rain persisted and, if anything, got worse by the time of the start of the race. Consequently, the decision was made to start the race under the safety car. Furthermore, a directive was sent from race control instructing all cars - in the interest of safety - to start on the extreme wet tyres, rather than just the intermediates. However, as the cars pulled away from the green light (there was no formation lap) it was clear that the Ferraris were indeed on the intermediate tyres, which was evinced by the fact that Felipe Massa managed to spin off on lap two, under the safety car. Because of their tyres, race control threatened to show the Ferraris the black and orange flag to force them to pit. In the end, both Ferraris pitted of their own accord for the extreme weather tyres, but were somewhat less than gruntled at the situation because they were now trailing the field behind the safety car. Ferrari were adamant that they did not receive the email instructions from Race Control - which were only sent out some 30 minutes before the race started - and elected to roll the dice with their tyre choice. The story about not receiving the email is believable; the logic for using the intermediates was not. Clearly the rain was far too heavy and too persistent for the intermediates to be effective. Regardless of any failings of electronic communications technology, it was foolish to send their cars out with the intermediate tyres in those conditions. Yet again, Ferrari stumbled tactically.

The conditions were fairly static, and thus the safety car continued to circulate. Several drivers could be heard to come over the radio saying how appaling the conditions were, some even saying the conditions were getting worse. Race Control, it appeared, were quite content to run out the clock until the weather improved. They did have the option to suspend the race, but in hindsight this would not have achieved much because the rain was persistent, although it did ease off slightly later on in the race. At least whilst circulating under the safety car the cars were on track, and potentially clearing some standing water, although the procession was slightly tedious to watch.

Because the rain looked likely to persist, some drivers took the opportunity to load up on fuel to presumably make it to the end of the race. One of whom was Tonio Liuzzi, who at this point was circulating one lap down, having started from the pit lane. The Ferraris elected to stop also - Raikkonen pitted on lap 15 and it looked like this was tactical on the part of Ferrari. If they fuelled him to the end of the race, it would help to negate the disadvantage of running at the back after their forced stop for tyres earlier on. If this was the case, they could still be looking good for a victory - it was uncertain how much fuel the McLarens had on board and how long the safety car was going to be out for.

A breakthrough came on lap 17 - race control instructed Liuzzi to pass the field and unlap himself. Was this a precursor to safety car peeling off? Sort of. Liuzzi's lap time once free of the safety car was quite quick - in the 1:33s range. Race control presumably saw this and pondered bringing in the safety car - two laps later the safety car was called in and the race was underway. Lewis Hamilton immediately took charge, opening up a gap to his McLaren teammate. Behind them were Vettel, Webber, and Button. Several cars had comings together in the first laps under green, not least of which was Jenson Button who lost his front wing, but incredibly seemed to be able to do a very competitive lap time without it - it appears as though the Honda aerodynamics really are strange! Nevertheless, Button elected to pit for a new nose.

Things went from bad to worse for Felipe Massa who received a drive through penalty for passing under the safety car after his earlier spin. This dropped him down to 21st place, and he would spend the rest of the afternoon fighting with people.

Takuma Sato further livened up proceedings when he had to pit for a new nosecone. After fuelling his Super Aguri Honda, a fire erupted at the back of the car, but the team elected to release his flaming car, probably figuring that the wind and the rain would extinguish the blaze. Sure enough it was out within a few seconds! Up front, it was the leaders' turn to pit. Of the McLaren pair, Alonso pitted first on lap 28 and took on a huge amount of fuel - around eleven seconds worth. It appeared he was fuelled to the end. The long stop saw him rejoin in eighth place, behind a scrap between Coulthard, Fisichella, and Kubica. Hamilton then stopped on the next lap, and took on a similarly large amount of fuel. However, he was able to rejoin in 3rd place, ahead of the aforementioned scrap, but behind Vettel and Webber. That's right - the rookie Vettel was leading a race, and a Red Bull stable mate was second. Their glory would not last long though - they each pitted on lap 32 and 37 respectively. The lead was thus handed to Kovalainen - another rookie leading!

Alonso was having a torrid time in traffic with his heavy fuel load, and lost places to Heidfeld and then Vettel, who made quite quite heavy contact with the Spaniard's car in an attempt to get past, which caused minor damage. Similarly, Kubica and Hamilton had a coming together, causing both to spin. Neither car seemed to suffer any damage (although Hamilton subsequently complained of a vibration), but Kubica received a drive through penalty for his lunge up the inside of Hamilton which caused the collision. To be fair, Hamilton was taking a long, wide line and Kubica probably just misjudged Hamilton's exit speed. It was really no more than a racing incident and it probably didn't merit a penalty.

In front of all the action, Kovalainen remained in the lead until his pit stop on lap 40, which dropped him down to 8th place. At this point the rain, which had eased off somewhat, worsened. Meanwhile, Kimi Raikkonen who had been charging his way through the field and had clawed his way back up to 7th place, pitted on lap 41 - Ferrari had not fuelled him to the end as expected. He dropped back to 12th place. One lap later, on lap 42, the worst possible scenario for Alonso was realised - he crashed out heavily at turn 5. The replays were inconclusive, but according to his later statements he tried a wider line than he had been using and lost the rear of the car - he slammed into the inside wall backwards, having spun through about 270 degrees. His race was over, and his championship hopes had taken a severe blow. If Hamilton were to win, his lead would be extended to 12 points with 2 races remaining.

However, that had yet to be decided - Alonso's crash precipitated (no pun intended) the second safety car period of the race. Hamilton was in the lead, followed by Webber, Vettel, Kovalainen, then Massa, who had excellently fought his way back into contention. On lap 46, after three safety car laps, perhaps the most bizarre incident of the race occurred - Sebastian Vettel rear-ended Mark Webber's Red Bull and took both cars out of the race. Again the replays were inconclusive, but evidence that emerged later seemed to imply that Hamilton had been driving erratically under the safety car - making several sudden stops and starts. Hamilton claimed that he was doing this to keep heat in his brakes and prevent them from glazing, and in fact complained after the race that Webber had been driving too close to him under the safety car. Given the terrible weather conditions, Hamilton can be forgiven for not following the safety car procedures to the letter, but so can Vettel for being caught out by the situation ahead of him (there are precedents, for example the 2000 Italian Grand Prix and the 2004 Monaco Grand Prix). Webber can also be forgiven for his use of the F-word to describe what had happened when interviewed live by ITV - the Australian was clearly annoyed.

On lap 48, the safety car peeled off again, and Hamilton steamed into a comfortable lead ahead of Kovalainen, Massa, Coulthard, and Raikkonen. On lap 58 Raikkonen pulled off a stunning maneuver to pass David Coulthard around the outside of turn 5, although on the very next lap he ran wide at the same turn but managed to keep his position. Ahead of him Felipe Massa was reeling in Kovalainen but incredibly Massa came in for a final pit stop on lap 59. It appeared as though Ferrari had erred again with their fuel. This dropped Massa down to 9th but promoted Rubens Barrichello to 7th. The Brazilian looked like he might score his first points of the year until he too had to stop on 61.

Up at the front, Hamilton looked serene. Kimi Raikkonen on the other hand, who was now in third place, was fighting hard to catch and pass fellow Finn Kovalainen - Raikkonen had several off track excursions and had the look of a man who was possibly trying too hard or driving too fast for the conditions. Further back, Massa had cycled through to 7th, and was fighting hard with Kubica - on the last lap the two swapped places several times, and had a couple of love taps in the process. Massa would ultimately finish ahead of Kubica, but it was Hamilton who took the plaudits - a superb race with a near faultless performance in appalling conditions. It was a champion's drive. Kovalainen held off Raikkonen for second - his first career podium and the first ever podium with two Finns. David Coulthard came home a well deserved 4th place, ahead of Giancarlo Fisichella, Felipe Massa, Robert Kubica, and Vitantonio Liuzzi. However, Liuzzi was later adjudged to have passed Adrian Sutil under yellow flags and was given a 25 second post race penalty. This dropped him out of the points, and promoted Sutil to his first ever world championship point.

So, Lewis Hamilton took a superb win - his fourth of the season - to extend his world chamionship lead over Alonso to 12 points with two races reamining. The Japanese Grand Prix had at times been chaotic and dramatic, but there was further drama to come. The Red Bull team later protested Hamilton's actions under the second safety car and although the stewards took no action (other than to reverse a penalty imposed upon Vettel), there was for a while the hint of yet another dark cloud looming over the sport, and it had nothing to do with the weather in Japan.

Effwun

Full results

Position   Driver   Time   Position   Driver Time
1 Hamilton 2:00:34.579   12 Yamamoto + 1 Lap
2 Kovalainen   + 8.377 s   13 Trulli + 1 Lap
3 Räikkönen
 + 9.478 s   14 Heidfeld Lap 65
4 Coulthard + 20.297 s    15 Sato Lap 65
5 Fisichella + 38.864 s    16 Schumacher   Lap 55
6 Massa + 49.042 s    17 Davidson Lap 54
7 Kubica + 49.285 s    18 Rosberg Lap 49
8 Sutil + 60.129 s    19 Vettel Lap 46
9 Liuzzi + 80.622 s    20 Webber Lap 45
10 Barrichello + 88.342 s   21 Alonso Lap 41
11 Button Lap 66   22 Wurz Lap 19

Fastest lap - Hamilton 1:28.193 (lap 27)

 

The Alternative Podium Ceremony

The John Watson Award for most places gained in the race - Vitantonio Liuzzi (13)

The Olivier Grouillard Award for best roadblock - Robert Kubica for holding Massa at bay

The Phillipe Alliot Award for most pointless crash - Sebastien Vettel

The David Coulthard Award for outstanding achievement in the field of complaining - Mark Webber ("That's the thing with these rookies - they come in, they do a good job, then they f*** it all up!")