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Was Verstappen brilliant in the rain, or was Leclerc shit? He could keep the pace for some laps, and then started to lose seconds per lap.

A little bit of both. Verstappen was obviously on another level looking at his laptimes compared to Perez's. But can only blame Leclerc so much, because that Ferrari was chewing through it's tires at a rapid rate, something that's been an issue for them all year.

Saw this on Reddit, this is gonna explain it...

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RIP Birmingham Wheels: here's some of the crash videos I recorded when it was there:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIaKIE ... 5t9d5PvoHA

Twitter:

http://www.twitter.com/paulhadsley

Add this to the complete shitshow that was the FIA today - https://www.racefans.net/2022/10/09/drivers-kept-racing-after-chequered-flag-amid-confusion-over-race-finish/

Of course I wasn´t there. I´m not an engineer, I´m not a driver or a team member. I´m a fan, sitting home, wondering why nobody started on full wets. NOT wondering why people spun, because they were on inters in these conditions. Wondering why there were trucks on the track, but also wondering why Gasly was driving at this high speed during safetry car and later red flag, in these conditions. Wondering why Gasly was so angry, and wondering why he only got a 20s penalty and not a race ban. Wondering why they waited 2 hours, then forced everyone to start on wets, when drivers almost immediately pitted for inters. Wondering why we still have wet tyres if nobody is going to use them. Wondering why Verstappen was so fast and kept his tyres in good shape, while others destroyed the fronts at a rate that in a full distance race, they whould have had to pit 2 or 3 times to change tyres, when we didn´t even had a drying line and not so long ago drivers could finish a race on them without pitting. And above all wondering why FIA made their rules so complicated that even they can´t understand them anymore, which lead to an enormous anticlimax in announcing the new world champion like a bunch of amateurs.

Ah yes, and wondering why the final lap was the final lap, when actually Verstappen had crossed the line with seconds left, meaning that the next time he crossed the line, he would be starting the final lap.

A detail I just noticed while rewatching the final laps: with 5 minutes to go, Alonso was 17 seconds behind Vettel!

that might be a new japanese GP trend, in 2019 the race also finished a lap shorter because someone showed the checkered earlier than projected

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Motorsports trend for 2024: everything is a bad taste joke now

French language commentator was equally confused, and he based his calculations off the "50 to 75" column of the FIA rulebook.

The closing statement from his broadcast was that Verstappen won the race, that we are sure off

Mind you, this was before the points were shown (this commentary is related to Belgian TV so it stops before the points table is displayed on the world feed).

I love how Alonso continues racing even after crossing the finish line (due to the fuck up by Race Control) and even tries to increase battery deployment only to get an "OVERTAKE DENIED!" warning.

Has anyone else noticed that a (fair) decision in favor of Red Bull came in minutes while a (also fair) decision against took hours to be decided in Singapore? If Perez were penalized in minutes, as he should have been and the FIA showed that it was possible, he would come back behind Leclerc and would have difficulty overtaking in Singapore...

In this way it is very easy for the FIA to change the result of a race... Just pointing out one more inconsistency by the FIA.

Congrats Max, none of that would change your achievement, this time honest and deserved.

This incident is just as big, if not bigger as the safety truck on the track in my opinion. When you have nearly half the field going at racing speed (and many of them in a battle) when the others are on a cool down lap with that amount of spray.....that is a massive recipe for disaster.

Both penalties were decided after the race. It´s just that one incident happened early on, and the other in the very last seconds of the race.

I've also seen it mentioned that when the checkered flag is waved early they usually take the positions from the lap earlier. Which would put Leclerc back in 2nd and Verstappen not WDC again. Obviously that's always been in races which have run to laps rather than time, so I don't know if it's meant to be the same... but still, wouldn't put it past the FIA to sweep it under the carpet and pretend the rule doesn't exist.

I blame Masi

now that the race has settled down is time for our post race stats

-2nd world championship for Max Verstappen
.the 10th to win back to back (alongside Ascari, Fangio, Brabham, Prost, Senna, M. Schumacher, Hakkinen, Alonso, Vettel and Hamilton)
.13th time the Japanese GP has been the championship decider (one at Fuji Speedway/1976 and all the rest at Suzuka/1987, 88, 89, 90, 91, 96, 98, 99, 00, 03, 11 and 2022)
.43rd time the championship has been won with rounds to spare
.2nd time championship is decided in Suzuka after the finish (first time in 1989 after Senna dsq)

-7th time in history with back to back races not achieving full distance or finishing on clock due to crashes, weather or new start procedure (1975: Montjuich and Monaco; 1984: Dallas and Brands Hatch; 1989: Imola and Monaco; 1997: Monaco, Barcelona and Montreal; 1998-99: Suzuka and Melbourne; 2014: Singapore and Suzuka and 2015: Hungaroring and Spa)

-gap between Vettel and Alonso at the finish line equals second closes finish in F1 history (although it wasn't for the victory): 0.011 seconds



I thought Mick Schumacher had indeed completed a lap on the lead but Max actually passed him before the line. That's a pity, if he had he would had been the 180th driver with at least a lap on the lead of a points paying GP

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Motorsports trend for 2024: everything is a bad taste joke now

We have 112 race winners. Does that mean that in the entire history of F1, only 67 drivers have lead a lap without winning a race?

Went to look things up because statistics are always fun. The race winner with the least laps lead must be Jochen Mass with 5 laps.

Marcus Winkelhock lead 6 laps in his only start, of the 13 laps he did. That means that almost 50% of the laps he ever drove, he was leading.

shows how much is difficult to lead a race

Russell is already 20 laps on the lead to become the 2nd driver with most laps on the lead without a victory

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Motorsports trend for 2024: everything is a bad taste joke now

another missing stat

-Max Verstappen now holds the record for the shortest time span between 2 titles. 301 days between 2021 Abu Dhabi GP and 2022 Japanese GP

previous record was 322 days between 2003 Japanese GP and 2004 Belgian GP for Michael Schumacher

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Motorsports trend for 2024: everything is a bad taste joke now