2017 Japanese Grand Prix - Suzuka, 6-8 October

[Bill_Kar]

Yeah in some of the races with incidents it looked really suspicious, many people including me felt that they were interfering with the race WWE style. Remember that 'muricans own F1 now I hope for the sake of the sport that that's not what happened and does not repeat.

Exactly. I don't remember incidents by heart, but it was a thing.

Well... To be honest, has anyone ended a season with no component related penalties in the current formula ?

Rosberg didn't in 2016, in a much similar position with Hamilton this year. Mercedes-power teams have a much better components management in general.

[ChrisDanger]

Japanese Grand Prix Driver Briefing

[Jordan44]

I refuse to take Vettels error in Singapore as a token of “luck”. Malaysia and Japan however, absolutely.

Singapore was going to be the greatest F1 race of this millennium.

What's been interesting Japan is watching the surgical precision in which the gap stayed at 2.5 seconds for half the race. I think Red Bull suffers from a dirty air issue just as much. I don't think you can have a car that's aero efficient and NOT suffer. Clearly Verstappen didn't make an attempt to challenge, and Lewis was nursing that PU and nursing the tires for all he could.

The story for Austin will be how many grid penalties for Hamilton.

Oh I agree on this too. New ICE is a certainty IMHO.

PU4 has ran 4 races now. PU3 has ran 2. PU4 will do Austin and PU3 the last 3 races. Unless they have a failure there shouldn't be any penalties.

[Jolle]

Apart from Hamilton last year, I think more or less all Mercedes-PU drivers over the last 4 seasons?

Really ?!? I would've thought otherwise... And this from F1Fanatic:

No Mercedes-powered drivers have taken any grid penalties for power unit component changes so far this year.

Must say I'm surprised and impressed.

Plus, with the no-token rule, they can build different spec engines. Quite possible to have a "safe" PU with a heavier TC and some extra bearings around the H and K units, a bit down on power but can last 10 races.

[Phil]

Anyway, it's been a great year of racing and I'm genuinely happy for you, Hamilton and all his fans! After the horror of last year, this is a title well deserved. And knowing me, you will know that I always mean what I say.

Today was a dagger driven deeper in the heart for us Vettel fans, but that doesn't take away from the brilliance of the rivals. Well, at least we gave this a good old run for it.

I feel your pain... :-/ i genuinely believed (and received quite a bit of criticism for it in the permutation topic) that this championship was going to be a lot closer, but this unfortunate, baffling spark plug issue really put a dent in it. To be fair to Vettel/Ferrari, it took an absolute flawless and consistent performance of Hamilton and Mercedes to come this far, and this is a testament to the terrific job Vettel and Ferrari have done this season. And after last year, this was the last thing i had expected.

I am eating my words in that 1/3rd into this season, i was sure Mercedes would pull through by overcoming their struggles on what i believed to be the strongest car - but right now, all reliability issues aside, i am amazed by how good that Ferrari still is. What a pity that it looks like Ferrari has beat itself with these reliability issues. :/

[Jolle]

Anyway, it's been a great year of racing and I'm genuinely happy for you, Hamilton and all his fans! After the horror of last year, this is a title well deserved. And knowing me, you will know that I always mean what I say.

Today was a dagger driven deeper in the heart for us Vettel fans, but that doesn't take away from the brilliance of the rivals. Well, at least we gave this a good old run for it.

I feel your pain... :-/ i genuinely believed (and received quite a bit of criticism for it in the permutation topic) that this championship was going to be a lot closer, but this unfortunate, baffling spark plug issue really put a dent in it. To be fair to Vettel/Ferrari, it took an absolute flawless and consistent performance of Hamilton and Mercedes to come this far, and this is a testament to the terrific job Vettel and Ferrari have done this season. And after last year, this was the last thing i had expected.

I am eating my words in that 1/3rd into this season, i was sure Mercedes would pull through by overcoming their struggles on what i believed to be the strongest car - but right now, all reliability issues aside, i am amazed by how good that Ferrari still is. What a pity that it looks like Ferrari has beat itself with these reliability issues. :/

To have some Ronspeak: To finish first, you first have to finish.

[cooken]

Why may I ask?

They can take a no risk policy. Why run an ICE that has miles on the clock when you can stick a new one in wth very little cost (In relative terms).

????

What risk? In the PU pool, they still have enough miles to make it to the end of the season. No failures on HAM's car so far, no binned components yet, lots of miles on safe mode... There is no indication what so ever they need extra components.

I think you hope that they didn't do their homework....

Also might be relevant to consider bathtub curve model for probability of failures vs operating time for an engine. Brand new integrated components can actually have a higher probability of failure initially, called "infant mortality", so the risk of keeping an older engine vs introducing a new one is not so straightforward (not to mention all the other risks from starting in midfield).

[cooken]

As for the race, how about that move from KMag, Mr. Disrespectful himself. If only he didn't dip his rear onto the grass and make it look too clumsy, but for me definitely the best overtake.

Also thought the race was managed well by race control and track crew. Nice short VSC periods and back to action. Seemed to clear some of the debris pretty seamlessly as well.

[Restomaniac]

Why may I ask?

They can take a no risk policy. Why run an ICE that has miles on the clock when you can stick a new one in wth very little cost (In relative terms).

????

What risk? In the PU pool, they still have enough miles to make it to the end of the season. No failures on HAM's car so far, no binned components yet, lots of miles on safe mode... There is no indication what so ever they need extra components.

I think you hope that they didn't do their homework....

No Mercedes failure so far. It's BOUND to happen at some point. Better to negate it happening to the guy going for the WDC.

[Edax]

Singapore was going to be the greatest F1 race of this millennium.

What's been interesting Japan is watching the surgical precision in which the gap stayed at 2.5 seconds for half the race. I think Red Bull suffers from a dirty air issue just as much. I don't think you can have a car that's aero efficient and NOT suffer. Clearly Verstappen didn't make an attempt to challenge, and Lewis was nursing that PU and nursing the tires for all he could.

The story for Austin will be how many grid penalties for Hamilton.

Oh I agree on this too. New ICE is a certainty IMHO.

PU4 has ran 4 races now. PU3 has ran 2. PU4 will do Austin and PU3 the last 3 races. Unless they have a failure there shouldn't be any penalties.

If they manage to secure the championship, then I think they should swap PU for the last race. Just get a new one, open it up fully and drive the thing to bits in one race.

I got a feeling that despite the penalties it would be a very humbling experience for the other teams.

[Restomaniac]

Lewis' start over here was extremely similar to the one Vettel made in Singapore.

No it wasn't. If you are going to chop you need to make damn sure you are clear and under control. Hamilton was Vettel wasn't on either level.

[Restomaniac]

By the way, no one is going to bring this up because it had no bearing on the championship, but we saw another tyre failure today. Suzuka is a notoriously fast circuit and we all know what happened a couple of years back. The entire grid, world champions even have said clearly that the wet tyres are not good enough. Every year there are these tyre failures and in my opinion this is a major quality issue for a series that's so big. May be we only learn when someone loses their life! It's just a bloody disgrace!

Stroll you mean? looked more like a rim failure to me.... But tires are rubber balloons with air inside them rubbing against tarmac with bits of carbon flying around (all at great speed). 100% safety is impossible and the only other issues we had were at Silverstone, where the Ferrari's had a very very long run on them plus I think one of them was a normal puncture.

If you want to make tires safer, they will come with mandatory max laps. Teams will always stretch just before failure. How much risk you want to take. In general in motorsport it is: the closer you come to failure, the better it is.

Indeed. 2nd place today was down to the canvas on his fronts.

[Shrieker]

Stroll went over 88mph...



lol

[PlatinumZealot]

Nice race to watch!
Couldn't ask for anything more except maybe a.Close Vettel and Hamilton battle with Hamitlon winning

Congrats to Lewis on the win! But i could not help but feel the pace of the Mercedes was again below expectations. Pretty sure this would have been a clear win for Vettel here. It is so unfortunate for Ferrari but just as much as f1 is a chamionship for drivers it is a chamionship for engineers as well!

[Shrieker]

But i could not help but feel the pace of the Mercedes was again below expectations. Pretty sure this would have been a clear win for Vettel here.

I felt that Hamilton was cruising with the engine turned down all the way at points... One lap they were showing his onboard, on the main straight in 8th gear the lights on the wheel didn't even light up, or barely did iirc. They definitely turned the engine down for reliability.