Japan – French Report: Nearly a Hat-Trick in Points

Romain Grosjean (Haas): 8th (5th on the grid)

During the qualifiers, Romain Grosjean executed a perfect strategic move: the team sent him out on soft tires during Q2, which was meant to allow him to perform a long first stint during the race. He then managed to stand out, securing an impressive 5th place in Q3 as the rain was set to disrupt the end of the session.

If one could expect Sebastian Vettel (8th on the grid) and Daniel Ricciardo (15th) to make another comeback, the Frenchman could once again aim for the 7th place finish, the best of the others after the top 3. That’s almost what he managed to do, notably by emerging just ahead of Sergio Perez during his only tire change.

However, at the end of the Virtual Safety Car period, he saw the Mexican driver come alongside him and overtake him in the final chicane. A situation incomprehensible for the Haas driver: “We need to analyze what happened with the restart after the VSC. I perfectly respected my time gap and Perez, who was 2.4 seconds behind before, overtook me directly. We must check if there was a problem in the system. I thought I had done the hardest part.”

These four points from the 8th place still allow him to surpass Pierre Gasly in the Drivers’ Championship, moving up to the 13th position.

Esteban Ocon (Racing Point Force India): 9th (11th on the grid)

At the end of qualifying, Esteban Ocon could be satisfied with having once again dominated his teammate in this exercise. As new non-aggression measures were put in place after their collision in Singapore, he could aim to do the same at the end of the race and thus take the lead in the Drivers’ Championship while both drivers arrived in Suzuka with a perfect tie.

But that was without considering a penalty due to not respecting yellow flags during Nico Hülkenberg’s accident in the last practice session. He was thus relegated to 11th position on the grid along with his main rival.

This directly dictated his final result, as he commented after finishing 8th: « The team scored good points today but I am not completely satisfied because our final result was dictated by our penalty yesterday. We had a very good pace all weekend, being the fourth fastest team, but if we don’t start higher, it’s hard to show it in the race. »

He was nonetheless able to enjoy himself, with several overtakes and a nice comeback at the end of the race: « There were some nice moments today and I was able to overtake a lot. When we had new tires, there was a big pace advantage, and our strategy paid off in the end. I was close to catching Grosjean in the final laps, but I didn’t have the opportunity to attempt an overtake. » he concluded.

With these two points, he moves within a single unit of Fernando Alonso and thus the possibility of being in the top 10 of the championship.

Pierre Gasly (Toro Rosso): 11th (7th on the grid)

Toro Rosso achieved its best qualification of the year, securing the 6th and 7th fastest times in qualifying. On a circuit that belongs to it and an event that bore its name, it was excellent news for its engine supplier Honda.

However, the Japanese engine manufacturer was not rewarded in front of its fans, mainly due to an ill-timed strategy, as noted afterwards by driver No. 10: « I had a good start and managed to overtake Brendon. The first stint was great. I felt good in the car behind Romain. I was quite close to him, but we extended the first stint too long because we didn’t want to end up in traffic. But several cars managed to pass us. »

If he was able to attack with his new soft tires, the end of the race was an ordeal, with severe degradation of his rear tires, to the point where he was overtaken by Carlos Sainz in the last lap and deprived of the 10th place point: « It’s just a shame after such a great qualifying yesterday. It would have been a nice reward for the team and Honda here in Japan for their home race to have some points. »