Japanese Grand Prix: The closest thing to an F1 driving test

All hail the mighty Suzuka.

Honda’s twisting, testing masterpiece may well be the ultimate precision driving test on the F1 calendar.

Created by Dutch circuit designer John Hugenholtz, Suzuka’s iconic figure-of-eight track is loved by fans and drivers alike, as a place that rewards talent and punishes poor piloting.

What should you look out for at Suzuka this weekend?

Bonkers bends, brilliant bends

You want terrifying high-speed corners? Try Suzuka’s famous 130R for size, taken flat-out at around 190mph.

The cars will be running fairly high-downforce set-ups to maximise grip in the many corners, and a turn such as 130R puts a tremendous amount of energy through the tyres – Pirelli are bringing hard (orange), medium (white) and soft (yellow) rubber, and most teams will stop twice.

The sustained lateral forces on a driver’s neck muscles are also a challenge at Suzuka, with 130R presenting the highest continuous such forces of the season (followed by some serious braking, as the cars shed five-sixths of their speed for the chicane).

While there are other classic bends here – the Degners pair, the tightening Spoon curve – it is perhaps the Esses section which showcases F1 cars at their finest.

Left-right, left-right, up then down, camber changing, there is but one perfect line through the Esses. Get the first corner wrong and you are compromised for the second; that will punish you in the third… and so on.

If the Mercedes are running in clean air this weekend, watch how they attack this section and marvel at how perfectly their cars move through such a tricky section.

Well, assuming Hamilton and Rosberg are on form, that is…

No prizes for second

The Merc drivers should be on form – Rosberg has his best chance ever of taking the championship but, if Hamilton wins the remaining five races, he’ll be king again.

After the various problems Mercedes had in Malaysia – problems which stopped them winning the Constructors’ Championship at their main sponsor’s home race – the team need to put on a professional display.

Hamilton may have had a horrible result last time out but, until his engine expired in a whoosh of flames (pictured), he had been imperious, utterly destroying Rosberg in any head-to-head comparison.

When he’s focused, Hamilton is untouchable in this Mercedes – and he will be focused, as Rosberg himself has warned.

As for Rosberg, he is on scruffy form. Brutally outqualified by Hamilton last weekend, he made some eye-catching – and incredibly risky – overtakes as he fought his way through the field.

He has to bring his A-game to this race; it’s not enough to score well at Suzuka, this is a place where you want to drive like a champion, because it’s hard to hide if you don’t get everything just right.

Well, oil be damned

The teams using Mercedes engines will all be running a slightly less powerful engine configuration this weekend, Mercedes included.

Hamilton’s Malaysia blow-up was caused by a big-end failure, which is a pretty rare occurrence in F1.

For the benefit of non-mechanics, an engine piston is connected to a crankshaft with a con-rod (the crankshaft then transfers power to the gearbox). The big end is the bearing which connects the con-rod to the crankshaft, and it’s called the big end because … it is bigger than the other end.

Hamilton’s failed because of a drop in oil pressure. Mercedes still haven’t worked out what caused this and so they are running all their engines to a more conservative specification, and delaying some engine upgrades too.

Suzuka does place quite high demands on engines – as well as a couple of high-speed sections, the constant flow of corners requires a smooth supply of power, as drivers steer with the throttle.

You may not think a slightly different engine mode can make much difference but, remember, sometimes competitors’ lap times cannot be separated by even one-thousandth of a second. Small changes can have a big impact.

Followers in a flap

Being stuck in the turbulent air of another car is a particular challenge at Suzuka.

Losing front-end grip because of turbulence, particularly in the Esses, will hurt lap times as well as tyres.

This could be particularly significant for the Merc pair – if the Mercedes has a weakness, it’s that it struggles (relatively speaking) when it’s not running in clean air.

Team strategists can be working overtime, trying to undercut competitors in pitstops when they can’t do it on track.

There’s always the weather to watch out for at Suzuka and rain here is a particularly political problem for F1.

That’s because of the 2014 crash that ultimately cost Jules Bianchi his life.

It continues to cast a long shadow over a sport which, until that fateful race, had long since eliminated driver fatalities.

Hat’s all, folks

The crowds in Japan are not just enthusiastic, they are devoted. Even on the Thursday of race weekend, you can expect to see thousands of people watching… well, watching not very much, to be quite honest.

They are a particularly keen lot.

Everyone seems to have a big camera and there is nowhere else where the ‘car on a hat’ look is so ubiquitous.

For those at the circuit, the food is fantastic and the souvenirs are simply bemusing. ‘No-gravel pepper garlic’, ‘squid’ made from tyre debris (or is it the other way round?), rain-hoods shaped like oversized helmets.

And, if you get bored with all that, you’re in the middle of a theme park so you can go and get some more traditional thrills.

For the rest of us, it’s either an early alarm call or, if you want to watch the build-up, a testing all-nighter with an occasional catnap during the race.

Now, where did I put that Suzuka gravel-free pepper?