Lewis Hamilton was the car to beat at the FORMULA 1 2018 HONDA JAPANESE GRAND PRIX, dominating the race from pole position. Despite a penalty early in the race, Max Verstappen was able to present a late-race challenge for P2 against Valtteri Bottas. Sebastian Vettel, for another time in this 2018 season, crashed in the race.
It was a clean start as the lights went out. Lewis Hamilton came across to cover off Valtteri Bottas. Further back, Sebastian Vettel got a strong start, getting alongside the Toro Rosso of Pierre Gasly in turn one and sneaking by. He later went to challenge the leading Haas and take P5.
Max Verstappen was put under pressure by Kimi Räikkönen, as the duo came into the final chicane. Verstappen locked up entering the chicane and running Räikkönen wide with some contact. This allowed Vettel to get by his teammate by the end of the first lap, moving into P4. The incident was looked at by the stewards and they awarded a five second time penalty for Verstappen.
There was some drama on the second lap as Charles Leclerc chased down Kevin Magnussen. With some advantage from the slipstream, Leclerc was the faster car and moved to the inside down the straight. Magnussen made a late blocking move, pulled in front of the Sauber. Leclerc collided with the rear of the Haas, giving Magnussen a rear puncture and damaging the front wing of Leclerc’s car.
Magnussen limped back to the pit lane to replace his destroyed tyres. However, there was a lot of debris on the circuit that had been left behind by the stricken Haas as it made its journey to the pit lane. The debris required a safety car so that the track crew could clean the circuit.
The field got away cleanly when the race resumed. However, the following lap, Vettel ran into issues. Vettel attempted to overtake Verstappen on the inside of the high-speed Spoon Curve. Vettel carried a lot of speed into the corner, running into the side of Verstappen and spinning off the circuit. He was able to rejoin the race, but not without a lot of damage to the right sidepod of his Ferrari. The stewards looked at the incident but refused to take any further action.
With Räikkönen becoming vulnerable to Ricciardo, Ferrari called him to the pits on lap 18 to change to the medium compound tyres. The move didn’t help much, as the Finn left the pit lane to join a lot of traffic, slowing him. On the other hand, Ricciardo was running in clean air, allowing him to extract the maximum potential from that Red Bull car.
A few laps later, Verstappen was the first of the two Red Bull cars to pit, taking the aggressive soft compound tyre strategy. Despite also having to serve his time penalty for his collision with Ferrari’s number two driver, Verstappen still came out ahead of Räikkönen.
Two laps later, Bottas and Ricciardo entered the pits, both choosing the standard medium compound strategy. Ferrari’s day worsened when Ricciardo came out of the pits ahead of his leading driver, having managed to jump Räikkönen in the pits. Hamilton was the last of the leading cars to pit, going in on lap 25.
As the leading cars sliced their way through traffic, Bottas came under risk from Verstappen on the quicker tyre compound. Verstappen was gaining time on both Mercedes cars rapidly, but his progress was halted by a virtual safety car to remove Leclerc’s broken Sauber in the closing stages of the race. The VSC was short-lived, although Mercedes were almost tempted to make a free pitstop for new tyres.
When the VSC ended, Verstappen was able to get within DRS zone of Bottas. While lapping Fernando Alonso, Bottas locked up going into the corner. This allowed Verstappen to get quite close to the Mercedes in P2, but he quickly dropped outside of the DRS zone.
With just five laps remaining in the race, Bottas locked up again, allowing Verstappen to close the gap severely, but then pulling away, as he had done previously. Verstappen was unable to mount another late-race challenge, conceding the second step of the podium to Bottas. Hamilton increased his championship lead again, having dominated the race from pole position.
With just four races remaining in the 2018 season, it’s looking nearly impossible for Vettel to challenge Hamilton for the World Drivers’ Championship, virtually securing Hamilton his fifth career title. It’s looking likely that the title will become mathematically confirmed in at the next race in the United States or the Mexican Grand Prix.
Above results table does not include any post-race penalties
