[Official] Rate the Grand Prix: Japanese Grand Prix 2022

[Born Racer]

What score do you award it?

[bjohnsonsmith]

Despite its brevity, I thought that was an enthralling race, with Perez hunting down Leclerc and the battle with Hamilton and Ocon, plus the different strategies.

7.

[P38 in workshop]

Wasn't much of it was there?

[gert]

A 2.

It was half a race so the maximum is 5.
Minus 2 because all the confusion "he is champion, he is not, he is!"

And because I can count as good as FIA/F1/Race Control: 5 - 2 = 2

[TrapezeArtist]

I gave it a 7. What there was was deserving of more, but there just wasn't much of it.

The stewards are to be congratulated for getting Leclerc's penalty sorted out so quickly. In the circumstances, the confusion over the driver's world championship was entirely understandable, and at least the delay was kept to an absolute minimum.

The issue of Gasly and the recovery truck is more questionable. I suppose it all hangs on how the deployment of the red flag was conveyed to the driver. Were there red flags shown on each marshal's post? Were the flag-lights displaying red? Do the in-car lights include a red and was it shown? Were the teams told on the radio and did they pass that in a timely manner to their driver? If those are all or mostly yeses, Pierre has to hold his hand up and take his punishment. It could have been Jules Bianchi all over again, so perhaps the truck shouldn't have been deployed until race control could confirm that every driver was responding correctly (there was no great time pressure at this stage).

[AndreasDavour]

Originally Posted by TrapezeArtist

I gave it a 7. What there was was deserving of more, but there just wasn't much of it.

The stewards are to be congratulated for getting Leclerc's penalty sorted out so quickly. In the circumstances, the confusion over the driver's world championship was entirely understandable, and at least the delay was kept to an absolute minimum.

That was something really well done. If that had been delayed it would have been disastrous.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Once the race had been red flagged and given the track conditions, the vehicle shouldn't have been deployed until after all the cars were on pit road.

[steve_r]

7 - Perhaps rather generous from me. It was short, but Suzuka is great and there were some decent battles and some good driving on show.

[Aysedasi]

Great circuit + rain - should have been memorable. Other than Max driving away to win the race and the WDC with ease, I confess I wasn't really enthralled. The Perez/Leclerc battle at the end was entertaining, but didn't get it above a 3 for me.

[Tourer]

5 from me - such high expectations of this place and ended up being a bit of a damp squib (sorry). F1 again somewhat clumsy with wet starts and that tractor on the circuit was terrible!

[morninggents]

7 from me. One of the better ones. Suzuka is great compared to Singapore and the other street circuits. Hats off to the drivers - 18 finishers out of the 20 starters.
I thought Gasly was treated harshly by the FIA considering the recovery truck on the circuit.

[S griffin]

8. Just as it looked like we wouldn't get a race, we were treated to some great action, with a good mix of teams in the top 10. Just a shame we were let down at the end by more incompetence from the race stewards IMHO

[GT6]

3 from me as it was not really much of a race TBH

[Aysedasi]

Originally Posted by S griffin

8. Just as it looked like we wouldn't get a race, we were treated to some great action, with a good mix of teams in the top 10. Just a shame we were let down at the end by more incompetence from the race stewards IMHO

Which particular incompetence did you have in mind?

[S griffin]

I didn't like the stewards decision on Leclerc, but there's no point going on about it, since Leclerc accepts the decision. However the confusion at the end over points didn't help things either. But it doesn't take away from a very good race.

[Aysedasi]

I saw nothing incompetent in the stewards decision on Leclerc nor how they could really have resolved any confusion over the points more quickly bearing in mind the impact the penalty had on the outcome. I think you're pretty much on your own there.

[S griffin]

I just felt the penalty harsh, so maybe saying incompetence was a bit of an overreaction. But definitely not knowing what points would be awarded shows the lack of communication between the FIA and the teams about this. It wasn't exactly helpful for the fans

[Aysedasi]

That much is true, it certainly confused the C4 commentators!

[bjohnsonsmith]

It certainly confused me. I stopped watching the race, pretty much after the chequered flag, thinking roll on COTA. Went out to do a couple of errands, came back and discovered Verstappen was WDC. How was that possible? We now know what happened but at the time it was confusing.