Mercedes was crowned World Champions for a sixth successive season on a day in which Ferrari should have been triumphant, but wasn’t. Motorsport Week takes a look at the key talking points from Formula 1’s Japanese Grand Prix.
Mercedes is F1’s greatest team
It is no longer contentious to say that Mercedes is Formula 1’s greatest team: no other squad in the 70-season history of the championship has won both titles for six successive seasons. It has reached a level of performance that it not only strives to maintain but continues to improve, even accounting for the limiting factor of increasingly marginal discoveries. Mercedes is often at its strongest when it is weak – its ability to bounce back from disaster a key attribute – and the culture fostered is one that leads to individual and team growth. In a year in which it has not always had the fastest car it has still managed an astonishing strike rate of 12 victories in 17 grands prix and has had just one real off-day. Where can the team go from here? You would be extremely hard-pressed to bet against Mercedes making it seventh heaven in 2020, and with the 2021 regulations increasingly becoming watered down they will surely enter Formula 1’s (alleged) new era as overwhelming favourites. No dream team lasts forever but there are few signs that the Mercedes powerhouse is in its twilight days just yet. Their title celebrations also included a poignant tribute to Niki Lauda, whose passing in May shook Mercedes and left it without a valuable and respected member of the team. Lauda’s red cap, which has been left on his headset in the garage entrance since Monaco, was placed atop the trophy in his honour.
Ferrari’s race epitomised its year
Ferrari’s Japanese Grand Prix perhaps epitomised its 2019 Formula 1 season. It had a potent package but failed to deliver and relinquishing any hopes of a title with four rounds remaining is a disappointing outcome. It has taken seven pole positions but won just thrice, albeit on this instance the onus was on its drivers. Sebastian Vettel was scintillating in the rescheduled qualifying session and had the potential to win but for his false start. There was widespread bemusement at how Vettel escaped a penalty for a flagrant transgression of the regulations – even if he lost out through his mistake, a jump start is typically slam dunk – and not many were willing to accept the FIA’s less than convincing reasoning. Charles Leclerc, meanwhile, was atypically clumsy as he understeered into Max Verstappen into Turn 1, earning the first penalty points of his career, with his poor start ultimately leading to that incident. Ferrari has matured through this year and its car is now a formidable force at most venues, courtesy of the updates it has brought to a concept that it is pushing ahead with for 2020. But elsewhere Ferrari is still not as sharp as its main opponent. To be out of contention for both titles with four rounds remaining highlights that there is still a substantial deficit to reduce next season.
Albon impressive upon first Suzuka visit
In race trim Alexander Albon’s final result was nothing overwhelmingly exceptional. He was a minute down on winner Valtteri Bottas, with his career-best fourth slightly flattered by the collision between team-mate Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc. But it was in qualifying where Albon really impressed. In just his fifth race with the senior Red Bull team, and having never visited Suzuka before Thursday’s media day, Albon matched the time set by Verstappen in Q3. Considering how Verstappen often had a slight edge on Daniel Ricciardo in 2018, and obliterated Pierre Gasly in early 2019, it was an eye-catching lap from the Anglo-Thai, particularly as his build-up was hindered by the cancellation of Saturday’s action. It is easy to overlook the fact that Albon is still a rookie, such has been the assured nature with which he has adapted to the senior team, and he must surely now be the overwhelming favourite to retain the drive for 2020. It is also laughable now to think how easily he almost dropped off Formula 1’s radar until Ricciardo’s Renault move triggered the chain of events that meant Helmut Marko picked up the phone and dialled A for Albon…
Sweet Carlos Sainz
In Japan karaoke is king and anyone in a pack of journalists who has ever taken the mic to belt out Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline has done so with slightly adapted lyrics. Sweet Carlos Sainz. Fifth place never seemed so good. And so it was. Sainz Jr. has had a largely outstanding season with McLaren and in Japan delivered once more. His Q3 lap was just half a second behind the Red Bulls, while in race trim he (again) battled Lewis Hamilton at the start and subsequently embarked on a race-long battle with Albon, falling only nine seconds shy at the chequered flag. He was the only ‘midfielder’ not to be lapped. McLaren began the year off the pace but operationally sharp and it is now without question that the squad is not only fourth-best, but has started to bridge that gap to the front-runners. It is a testament to the restructured management team and the entire factory that have delivered update packages that have improved the MCL34.
Kubica, Williams reach new low…
Robert Kubica and Williams’ at-times tempestuous relationship reached a new nadir at Suzuka as an initially promising weekend unravelled in dismal fashion. Williams trialled a front wing – as part of its 2020 preparations – on Friday, with Kubica and George Russell both running the component at various points in FP1, before the Pole used it in FP2. It did not quite transform his car but it had a positive impact and it was suggested that the plan would be changed, and that the front wing – initially set for use only on Friday – would be kept on his car for Sunday. But when Kubica arrived at the circuit for qualifying he found a strange atmosphere. The old front wing was back on his car. He crashed as he began his Q1 hot lap, sliding wide and wiping the front-left from the car, and finished the race almost 90 seconds down on Russell, his best individual lap nine-tenths adrift.
“There were…. decisions taken before qualifying without even letting me know, and I think this is not the right way,” said Kubica. “Well conditions were different but [on] Friday something happened which gave me quite a lot of confidence and improved my feeling on the car,” he said.
“We agreed on something and then Sunday morning things they changed for whatever reason, I think it was not the decision of people who are here, so yep, I don’t want to go too much to the details. I think after Russia, where we were disappointing, and overall, when you have a driver who says for the first time I can drive for very long properly the car and actually I am exploring the car, this is what every team will look to have it, but for whatever reason…”
There are only four races left in the Kubica-Williams partnership and it’s a shame that the relationship has deteriorated to such an extent. It’s clear that both sides have failed to deliver at various points this year and that a fairy-tale story is likely to end in discord.
…but it’s not just him
George Russell cut a forlorn figure at the conclusion of the event as his initial optimism in the wake of his best qualifying performance of the year – his words – soured amid another difficult race. Having crashed out in Singapore (with Grosjean) and Russia (when a wheel nut failed) Russell was firmly adrift of the midfield pack, and the buoyancy of Hungary – when it appeared as if a corner had been turned – is long in the memory. Russell revealed that a brake issue has hampered him through the last few events though was coy on the exact cause, commenting that it was “particularly bad in the race. When you're almost braking into every corner you have no confidence on the brakes, means you have no confidence to attack the corner, that was compromising my pace.” More alarmingly for driver confidence it was an inconsistent problem as Russell revealed that “some laps it’s working well and others it’s not.” These are exceptionally difficult times for a team that once celebrated title after title. The saving grace is that there are just four more events to get through – and the fact it has a gem of a driver in Russell for 2020.
Putting the brakes on it
There was everyone’s favourite development in the Suzuka paddock on Sunday evening: a protest involving a complicated technical breach raised by one team against the other. Racing Point delivered a 12-page dossier to the stewards alleging that Renault has been using a pre-set automated brake bias system, which is against the regulations. Renault, for their part, has strenuously denied the claims. But it is the kind of accusation that could have wide-ranging consequences, and a 12-page dossier is not something that was merely compiled at the click of the fingers. Renault remains under severe pressure after a difficult year in which it has lost its only customer, failed to deliver the expected progress while it is yet to firmly commit post-2020. Further away from Formula 1 the company, which is 15 per cent owned by the French government, last Friday replaced its CEO. Racing Point’s protest has been deemed admissible and the next stages of an investigation are underway, with Renault’s standard ECU and steering wheels impounded by the FIA. It is no understatement to say that the outcome of the investigation will have wide-reaching consequences for the future of Renault in Formula 1.
Ferrari-powered backmarkers struggling
Ferrari has been praised for its engine gains this year but while the reds have been rapid since the summer break, its customer teams have regressed. It isn’t all just about the engine after all… Alfa Romeo has scored only three points since Formula 1 returned from its summer holidays while Haas has mustered just two, leaving the pair eighth and ninth in the Constructors’ Championship respectively. Neither will catch Racing Point. Alfa Romeo looked far more competitive in Japan as Antonio Giovinazzi and Kimi Raikkonen came close to making Q3, but in race trim the pair were “nowhere”, as bluntly stated by Giovinazzi, who urged an investigation. Considering the manner in which Sauber matured through 2018, finishing the year with Leclerc taking a string of spectacular sevenths, its plateauing in 2019 is a concern, particularly given that – in theory – this should be when the greater investment and recruitment in early 2018 should be paying dividends. Over at Haas Romain Grosjean made Q3 but a terrible first lap sealed his fate while his team-mate’s prospects had already been set just a few minutes into qualifying when he had a “quite embarrassing” shunt exiting the last corner. “We now know that these things happen,” said team boss Guenther Steiner. “You go into the race always knowing that at some stage we will have an issue with the tyre because we cannot generate the heat we need to make the tyre work. The blue flags come, you slow down, the tyre gets cold, we cannot get the heat back in, and you fall back. It sounds almost too simple not to have a solution for it but that is what is happening.”
