Japanese Grand Prix: Land of the rising son

It’s been an intriguing Japanese GP weekend. Nico Rosberg (pictured) moved a big step closer to repeating his father’s championship-winning feat; Max Verstappen put in another magnificent performance, complete with trademark defending controversy; Mercedes clinched the Constructors’ Championship.

And the headlines? They all seemed to involve Lewis Hamilton.

Here are some of the talking points…

Verstappen and… Lewis

The Red Bull youngster qualified an impressive third, then put in a copybook drive to come home second.

While his team-mate Daniel Ricciardo complained about a lack of speed, Verstappen stroked his car around in second place for most of the race, dealing with a little understeer, a little oversteer, not getting too wound up by backmarkers and, when the time came, holding off a late challenge from Hamilton.

He may have had less power on tap than the Mercedes, but Verstappen used his 160hp electric boost to great effect, neutralising Hamilton’s DRS advantage lap after lap.

When Hamilton finally got within striking distance, on the penultimate lap, we all knew what was coming next (pictured).

Whereas most drivers will adopt a defensive track position and force the following car to take a particular line, Verstappen waits for the driver behind to make a move, then blocks them.

It’s not illegal, though it is high-risk. Hamilton, inevitably, found himself taking an escape road to avoid a collision.

Mercedes lodged an official complaint but later withdrew it. Verstappen will, of course, do this again and, eventually, there will be tears.

In theory, other drivers have only to pull a dummy move to force Verstappen to commit early but, so tricky is it to follow in the turbulent air of another F1 car, it’s incredibly difficult to get close enough to do this – as Hamilton found out.

Still, the bottom line is that Verstappen started behind Hamilton, in a lesser car, and finished in front of him. Result.

Mercedes and… Lewis

Merc abandoned engine upgrades, turned down the power on their units and… saw six of the top ten cars powered by Mercedes engines.

Despite the scare around Lewis Hamilton’s recent blow-up, Mercedes still have enough spare oomph in their engines to be able to run them a little more conservatively and still dominate the race.

Oh, and they also picked up the Constructors’ Championship title.

Now they have that trophy for the third consecutive year, and they know that one of their drivers will be World Champion, Mercedes can turn even more of their focus on to next season, when rule changes mean engines will be less important compared with aerodynamics.

Whatever complaints Lewis Hamilton may have about reliability, they will be of secondary importance to Mercedes… at very best.

Nico and… Lewis

The atmosphere in the cool-down room before the podium ceremony was its usual frosty self, as far as the two Mercedes drivers were concerned.

As far as the Drivers’ Championship is concerned, we’ve learned a few things this season.

• Both Rosberg and Hamilton are capable of delivering the results to put them at the top of the table, reliability issues notwithstanding.

• Both Rosberg and Hamilton are capable of overturning big points deficits to overhaul their team-mate in the drivers’ table.

• Both Rosberg and Hamilton have struggled with their own issues over the year.

So the title fight is not over yet – but Hamilton needs to be focused and outscore Rosberg every time. Remember, in Malaysia, it was Hamilton who utterly dominated qualifying, it was Hamilton who was controlling the race from the front until his engine gave up, it was Hamilton in control.

There’s still some fight in this title yet.

Lewis and… Lewis

I suppose we should mention Hamilton’s off-track shenanigans, if only as a reminder of the distractions that can take up a driver’s valuable brain-space.

There’s no need to say any more about that press conference and those photos of him with bunny ears. I mean, come on – hurricanes, wars, a grade-A buffoon running for president, and some of the F1 press pack get uppity about being disrespected in a Mercedes press conference?

Grow a pair, remind yourself you’re reporting on the rarefied world of F1, not the carnage and chaos of Aleppo, move on.

However, in passing, I’ll just note that Hamilton doesn’t appear to be learning any lessons about the perils of social media (whoop!).

After the Japan GP – at 6.27pm local time, to be precise – Mercedes lodged a complaint with the FIA, saying Verstappen had driven ‘erratically’ and in a ‘dangerous manner’ when he blocked Hamilton.

The FIA decided to consider the protest at the next race, in the US, prompting Mercedes to give a shrug of their corporate shoulders and say ‘Ah, forget it’. The complaint was withdrawn at around 7.50pm.

The thing is, Hamilton had already tweeted that there was never any protest made, saying: ‘One idiot said we have but it’s not true.’

Of course, the question then was: Who’s the real idiot here?

Honestly, Hamilton’s tweets, his comments about press conferences, his ‘heart on the sleeve’ approach to media relations, these are all a breath of fresh air.

In the tightly-controlled world of corporate messaging which is F1, we fans should demand more of this stuff, not less.

And when one of the drivers gets it a bit wrong, we should flipping celebrate it, because it’s proof that some unfiltered stuff is getting out to the real world.

Give me the story of one Snapchatting Hamilton or a grumpy Raikkonen over a thousand dull-as-ditchwater, formulaic, lazy press conferences any day.

It’s more interesting, it’s more relevant and (hey, sponsors, I’m looking at you) it’s more engaging.

Mentions, both honourable and dishonourable

• Haas are awarded a gold star for getting both cars into the top ten in qualifying. They get a silver star for fitting brake discs that don’t explode.

• And they get detention for failing to convert any of this into even a single point. Still, full marks for effort.

• Ferrari win a copy of ‘The Big Book of Italian Jokes’ for having a dig at Vettel (via team boss Maurizio Arrivabene on Sky Sports Italia) while failing to keep up with Red Bull, never mind challenge Mercedes.
  
  

• And there’s a copy of the Bluffer’s Guide to CV Writing for Mr Arrivabene (pictured) himself. As team principal, he’s watched his outfit slide backwards. Next season, the teams with the best aero package will have a huge advantage and, if there’s one area that Ferrari have been weak on historically, it’s aero. The Maranello clock is ticking loudly.

• Blue flags get a mention in dispatches, because of the number of drivers who complained that slower cars were not obeying them promptly enough.
  I hate blue flags – to me, forcing slower cars to pull over and be lapped is akin to telling lower-division football teams they’re not allowed to run with the ball when they play against the big boys.
  I want fast drivers to have to battle through traffic – let’s face it, they’ve got DRS on their side – that’s one of the great features of circuit racing. Otherwise it can all get a bit Scalextric.

• Finally, blue flags aside, wheel-to-wheel action gets a knighthood, just because there was rather a lot of it at Suzuka. Entertaining? You bet.