Japanese Grand Prix: A real wet weekend!

At the time of writing this post, I'm sat here waiting for news on Jules Bianchi's condition, after he was involved in a incident at the site of Sutil's crash. In circumstances such as these, issues of safety and risk are always raised, and understandably, however I think that in this case everything was done to make the race as safe as possible. The rain became torrential, through the closing few laps of the race, and, after a spin from Sutil, the safety car was deployed. In my view, all appropriate action was taken and all we can do now is pray for Jules' speedy recovery.

Overall, it was a very exciting race, with the rain throwing up all sorts of drama and unpredictability. Despite the fact that the drivers started behind the safety car, the racing was on fire, and especially from the two Red Bull boys. This week Driver of The Day is actually Team of The Day and it goes to Red Bull Racing, for turning their weekend around. During qualifying, both Vettel and Ricciardo were struggling to get any kind of competitive pace out of their cars, whereas, through the midway period of the race, they were on fire. Vettel reeled in the Williams of Felipe Massa and dispatched him with relative ease. He then moved on to Bottas and dispatched the second Mercedes-powered Williams with just as much haste. Ricciardo acted similarly, with a couple of amazing manoeuvres, through the Dunlop curves. It was a great performance from the two Red Bull drivers and made it
impossible to choose between them, for Driver of The Day.

Jenson Button, in the McLaren, should also be commended for a great effort. His McLaren has been under performing all season, but he and his engineers managed to get him in to second place for a short period of the race. Ultimately, he just couldn't compete with the might of Red Bull Racing, but did manage to finish ahead of both Williams drivers. Ferrari, on the other hand, were back to their form of this season, Raikonnen struggling down the order and Alonso retiring during the two laps behind the safety car, at the very start.

We were spared the post-race theatrics, between Nico and Lewis. Everybody was much too concerned with Bianchi's condition. However, the result puts Hamilton in the driving seat, so to speak, with a ten point lead over his teammate. Once again, Lewis appeared to show his superiority over Nico, as he caught, passed and then left Rosberg behind. Rosberg complained of massive oversteer, but it's worth pointing out that, first of all it's normally Hamilton who moans, secondly they were both driving the exact same car, so there was no reason for them to be handling any differently, irrespective of the track conditions, and thirdly drivers often come up with excuses when they are under pressure. With only four races remaining, will Rosberg crumble or will he turn things around?

The Result:

Pos	No	Driver	Team	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Pts
1	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	44	1:51:43.021	2	25
2	6	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	44	+9.1 secs	1	18
3	1	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Racing-Renault	44	+29.1 secs	9	15
4	3	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing-Renault	44	+38.8 secs	6	12
5	22	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	44	+67.5 secs	8	10
6	77	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Mercedes	44	+113.7 secs	3	8
7	19	Felipe Massa	Williams-Mercedes	44	+115.1 secs	4	6
8	27	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India-Mercedes	44	+115.9 secs	13	4
9	25	Jean-Eric Vergne	STR-Renault	44	+127.6 secs	20	2
10	11	Sergio Perez	Force India-Mercedes	43	+1 Lap	11	1
11	26	Daniil Kvyat	STR-Renault	43	+1 Lap	12
12	7	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	43	+1 Lap	10
13	21	Esteban Gutierrez	Sauber-Ferrari	43	+1 Lap	15
14	20	Kevin Magnussen	McLaren-Mercedes	43	+1 Lap	7
15	8	Romain Grosjean	Lotus-Renault	43	+1 Lap	16
16	13	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus-Renault	43	+1 Lap	22
17	9	Marcus Ericsson	Caterham-Renault	43	+1 Lap	17
18	4	Max Chilton	Marussia-Ferrari	43	+1 Lap	21
19	10	Kamui Kobayashi	Caterham-Renault	43	+1 Lap	19
20	17	Jules Bianchi	Marussia-Ferrari	41	Accident	18
21	99	Adrian Sutil	Sauber-Ferrari	40	Accident	14
Ret	14	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	2	Electronics	5