Well, well, well. In the brief space of time following the racing under the lights in Singapore things have developed a little - all in the realm of the driver market. As the teams packed things away a fortnight ago the line-ups were hanging waiting for something to swing into action. All eyes were focused to the front of the grid where the key players were responsible for deciding the fate of the rest of the grid. Rumors were circulating around both Massa and Hamilton and their futures with their current teams - and it is those decisions which seem now to be cemented into position and set things into motion. Firstly with Massa, some dodgy performances had called his position into question and replacement seemed to be on the cards, but now it appears that Ferrari are retaining the services of the Brazilian. Then there is the Hamilton situation, where theories connected the McLaren driver to the Mercedes team, which seemed to be a crazy idea, leaving the fastest car on the grid to a slower team.
Last week that decision was made, and surprisingly Hamilton decided to go - so we can assume that Lewis knows something the rest of the world doesn't, most likely with respect to their 2014 program. Because the 2013 car will be probably as far off the pace as they are at the moment, waiting for the new engine regulations for the year after that, where it is possible that Mercedes could have an advantage then. This leaves a hole at McLaren and an overbooked seat at Mercedes, it was revealed that Button will be joined by Sauber's One-Stop Perez, and heading out of the series to make room for the emigrating McLaren driver is Oh Schu...macher. As the German is heading off into retirement for the second time - assuredly permanently this time around.
Now that is all cleared up time to move things along onto the matter of the next race on the calendar, and we are staying in Asia this time moving from Singapore off to Japan. To the land of giant city destroying reptiles, robots and talking lavatories - what more could anyone want from a country. Waiting in this exotic eastern land is Suzuka, a wonderful undulating circuit full of challenging high-speed corners and technical sections. The penultimate traditional layout of the season, and one of the most impressive laps of the entire season.
Qualifying
Here the opening sector is one of the best sequences of corners on the entire calendar, from the double apexed turn one and two, and cascading up through the slalom section climbing the hill - each corner slightly tighter than the last. Where each phase of the sequence is marginally different and a unique challenge, ending with the Dunlop corner which opens out on the exit. Following this are the two degner curves, the first is fantastic, just short application of the brakes filtering into the second phase which is cambered brilliantly before heading underneath the crossover section.
After the tunnel, is the slowest corner on the track - renamed here in the localized world of blog HQ as Kobayashi corner on account of Kamui passing almost everyone during the race in 2010 at the hairpin. The exit radiates round gradually on a narrower section of the track towards spoon corner either named because it looks remotely likely like a utensil, or something relating to the honda tuning company. Spoon exits onto the back straight over the top of the crossover section towards the fastest corner of the track - 130R. In this era of high downforce the corner is not longer so much of a challenge - some teams even able to negotiate it using the DRS system. To finish the lap there is the casio triangle chicane, brought in a safety measure before the final corner, the only blemish on the lap as such. But it still manages to fit and offers an overtaking zone towards the end of the lap.
But here is the video introduction to the Suzuka circuit, which has been filmed back in the original blogmobile that the season was kicked off with before the controller died. As it has be replaced I have enough control and precision needed to manage running the F1 car, not that it helped the lap time which is still a long way off the pace, but these things happen.
In contrast to Singapore last time, this is a fast flowing track without the array of tight traction limited corners on a temporary racing surface. This means rather than Mechanical grip being the priority, the balance slips more towards aero grip. Therefore the power deficit that some of the teams have will be countered by an advantage in downforce and aero performance, namely playing towards the Red Bull team mostly. On that note we can assume that all three of the major teams will be in contention for the pole and victory, with the possible addition of the Lotus team. Amid the main runners it would not be too much of a surprise if the mid-grid teams do not make an appearance towards the front, both Sauber and Williams have found front row grid positions in the past three races.
Which means the middle of the field competition is much closer as the season comes closer to the conclusion in Brazil, the likes of Force India, Willams and Sauber have been scoring significant points recently. Two forth place finishes for the Force India team indicating that their pace seems to come to the fore more in the races than in qualifying - in contract to their immediate competition. This does cause a slight problem for Torro Rosso, are a little adrift from the rest of the mid-field teams, but despite that on raceday the team has been scoring points. Sometimes as a result of attrition from other teams but the race-pace of their car is an improvement also from their qualifying pace.
Down at the back of the grid, things are changing - once we had an almost infallible system where Caterham were out front and nothing ever changed since the teams joined the sport back in 2010. However last race saw Marussia catch the green cars on ultimate lap pace actually forming a challenge to the order of things. Then in the race, Marussia went ahead on track, and in the championship ordering, a result of a large jump in development and with the handicap of not running KERs. Consequently this leaves HRT out on their own down the back of the grid, the only thing going to plan there is the increase in equality across the team between the two drivers.
Blog predictions
Once more this is the section where I demonstrate that the championship is beyond prediction, with spontaneous mechanical failures and safety cars conspiring to make things even more unpredictable each weekend. Despite this the blog will still have a go at trying to guess what is going to befall us across the weekend.
- Vettel
- Hamilton
- Webber
- Alonso
- Button
- Raikkonen
- Rosberg
- Massa
- Kobayashi
- Grosjean
Qualifying battle
- Red Bull - Vettel
- Mclaren - Hamilton
- Ferrari - Alonso
- Lotus - Raikkonen
- Mercedes - Rosberg
- Sauber - Kobayashi
- Force India - Di Resta
- Williams - Maldonado
- Caterham - Kovalainen
- Marussia - Glock
- HRT - De La Rosa
Well there we go then, everything is prepared for the start of the Japanese GP weekend, the first of the early time-zones at the far end of the season, where FP1 starts at 2am here in little old England. Safe to say for the main sessions of the weekend, will be caught at the re-run times when I have actually awoken from the darkened realm of sleep. It is one of the main disadvantages of Japan being all too far away, it would be far more convenient if the country could be relocated rather closer to HQ. One upside of moving the country would be that it would avoid the typhoon season that affects that area of the Pacific ocean, and due to Suzuka being on the southern coast is often exposed to the storms. Previous Japanese GP's have been affected by the severe rains, washing out qualifying completely in 2010, and forcing the track to be evacuated several years before that.
This may not turn out to be one of the most enthralling races of the season, it is often the way with the more flowing layouts which lead to processional races. However some of the greatest moments have happened at the track Raikkonen victory in 2005 passing people in 130R and round the outside of the first corner to take the lead from Fishichella in a Renault (before acquiring Squadron status). So this weekend could go either way, and until Saturday this is farewell for now, when the next phase of the eastern adventure will be revealed.
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