Japanese Gp 2024 - Blog Posts

Another chaotic race, another race summary! Usually I'd make these digitally but I got a new set of pens and really wanted to use them,, anyways I love this circuit and GP a lot so I'm glad it was at a normal time for us Aussies :'))

I swear people on skysport's instagram commenting under Max's win saying F1 is boring now probably didn't even watch the race because so much happened and yet they're all going "boo max is winning again, I cant believe I woke up at 6 for this, what a snooze fest" ???

Did we even watch the same race? If you focused on any of the actual racing you'd be surprised at how Verstappen winning all the time doesn't take away from the competition in other parts of the race. Yuki finished in the points, Sargeant did several overtakes crashed AND DIDN'T DNF (all with a repaired chassis btw), Alonso defended wonderfully, Leclerc stayed in P4 on a one pitstop strategy, Sainz has a 100% podium rate for every race he's started this year, etc etc etc. but apparently the race is boring because Max won again.

Is the podium all they focus on? Actually, is first place all they focus on? Because if that's it, then maybe F1 isn't the sport for you. It's always been like this. You want more variety in winners, go watch motogp or indycar, where the cars are almost identical and so drivers can compete without the cars being as big of a factor to their performance. But stop complaining about Max's dominance I am so sick and tired of hearing it.

Albon and Ricciardo just crashed in Lap 1. A red flag was called, so clearly the FIA learnt from last week, but no updates on the damage to Albon's car.

Short recap of the Japanese GP Quali!

- Daniel Ricciardo missed out on Q3 by less than a second, but Yuki Tsunoda will start 10th for his home race!! He sadly didn't improve his time in Q3 but an impressive performance nonetheless.

- A few penalties handed out... firstly to George Russell for an unsafe release into Oscar Piastri (£5000 to Mercedes) and also Nico Hulkenberg for exceeding track limits (time deleted)

- Both Williams missing Q3 again, coming in P19 (LS2) and P14 (AA23). Albon continues to with drive Sargeant's chassis as "the workload to switch the cars back over would be far too much for the mechanics." Although not ideal, the chassis shouldn't be too different weight-wise, and he's expected to have the spare by Miami. The only problem is that the front wing and rear were damaged in FP1, but that has reportedly been fixed.

Q3:

Verstappen of course will start on pole, making 99 pole positions for Red Bull! Lando Norris started Q3 in P2, but Perez put in a good lap and knocked him down to P3. Behind him will be Sainz, then the birthday boy (Piastri), Hamilton, Leclerc, Alonso, Russell, and Tsunoda.

Q2:

Ricciardo, who qualified just 0.055 seconds behind his teammate, will start 11th. Behind him will be Hulkenberg, Bottas, Albon, and Ocon.

Q1:

Stroll starts 16th, knocked out of Q2 by Bottas's final lap, then Gasly, Magnussen, Sergeant and Zhou.

Will be back with a summary of the GP (hopefully) tomorrow!!

FP1's done! I hope those mercedes fans will be this hyped after the race too… 😭😭

Talking about Mercedes, Bradley Lord (Mercedes Comms Director) was on the foxtel broadcast and said this on Lewis's engine:

"We had a pretty sudden bottom end failure in the engine that we… traced [ ] back to a quality process problem rather than a design issue but the state of it is that it's out of the pool and he's on his second power unit for this weekend and then going forward."

and this on Toto in Sukuza: "After the tricky start we've had to the season he wanted to be here and be on sight and make his contribution as directly as possible."

Never been a Charles Leclerc fan but he's running a tribute helmet for Jules this weekend and I think it's wonderful so I've gotta share it here too in case you haven't seen it yet

Logan Sargeant just crashed in FP1 and lost the front wing,,, how we feeling logang

Clearing up some Ricciardo Rumors™️

Over the last few weeks rumors have sprung up about Daniel Ricciardo, which is fair enough considering the lineup for the RB and Red Bull seats as well as the expectations of him, but I've done a bit more research to clear things up :)

Replaced at Miami? Apparently not.

The New Zealand Herald wrote an article that claimed "Ricciardo has been given an ultimatum" (tldr: if he doesn't perform in Japan and China he will be replaced by Liam Lawson) as well as other things like "Lawson is seen internally as Red Bull’s best option to partner world champion Max Verstappen long-term."

The source itself isn't too reputable since the NZ Herald hardly does F1 reporting to begin with, but also because it's clear they would be biased towards the kiwi driver (Lawson).

These claims have also since been disproven, first by F1 journalist Thomas Maher who reported "Sources say there are no plans to replace Daniel Ricciardo, from the Miami GP or later, with Liam Lawson," and also by Speedcafe, who put out an article saying "Trusted sources within Red Bull Racing, which has an overarching contract with Ricciardo, denied the rumours outright when approached by Speedcafe"

Liam's team have denied the allegations too, saying he hasn't been advised by Red Bull of any moves so I don't think it was intentional pressure but rather just bad journalism from the newsletter.

Helmut Marko has implied DR needs to be doing better, claiming both RBs are "too slow" and Ricciardo is "a bit behind,” but he's also said "Ricciardo needs a safe and confident car. I hope the team can give him that, so he can at least be on par with Yuki," indicating his dissatisfaction is less with the drivers and more with the car.

What about in Suzuka? Yes... but also no.

Daniel Ricciardo will miss FP1 as Red Bull junior driver Ayumu Iwasa takes his car for the practice session, but this is just because F1 teams are required to to bring in a rookie for at least 2 FP sessions a season. Usually teams do this a bit later but RB brought a rookie in earlier last year too, when they were still known as AlphaTauri.

So why not bring in Liam Lawson? Technically he's not a rookie anymore since he's driven in more than 2 GPs. That, and Iwasa is Japanese and it's the Japanese GP. Only makes sense to let him shine a bit in his home circuit.

So is he in danger of losing his seat?

As of now, it doesn't look like there's any plans to kick him out before his contract is finished. He clearly brings a lot of good PR to the team, as well as advice to improve the car. The team has also been admitting the car needs improvements, and there's much to be done. Ricciardo isn't too far behind Yuki's pace either, however he needs to be actively outperforming him if he wants to guarantee moving past the RB seat or even staying another season, since it's clear there's options Red Bull wants to explore.

It's race week again!! I offer: a Max Verstappen poster.

Guess who can't afford F1 merch?