Race Report - A Dark Day

It was a dark day at Suzuka as the Japanese Grand Prix ended with Jules Bianchi suffering severe head injuries when his Marussia slammed into a recovery tractor.

The top three finishers - Mercedes teammates Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg and Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel - did not celebrate on the podium.

"Our first thoughts go to Jules," said Hamilton who had just won his 30th grand prix. "It overshadows everything else when one of our colleagues is injured and we are praying for him."

"My thoughts are with our colleague Jules and his family and teammates," Rosberg said, "and we are hoping for some positive news."

"Everything that happened with the racing on track is secondary today," Vettel said. "One of us is in a bad shape. Jules had a bad accident and we hope to have some very good news, very soon. Not knowing what's going on feels terrible, I think all the drivers really feel with him, as we know how difficult and slippery it was today; we hope for the very best."

It was indeed slippery as rain fell at the start of the race, then the track dried somewhat as the race progressed, and then the rain returned about lap 30.

On lap 41 Adrian Sutil crashed his Sauber at Turn 7. Sutil's car was a considerable way off the track as rescue crews brought in a recovery tractor to extract his car. One lap later, Bianchi spun off at the same corner and his car jammed under the tractor.

"What happened to Jules was the same thing that happened to me," a shocked Sutil said. "The rain was increasing and daylight was going down. I was following Jules and I spun, so I ended up in the wall. I stood up and left the car, so the marshals tried to remove my car. One lap later Jules lost the car."

The increasing rain and the decreasing light made Turn 7 a challenge.

"I think the problem, in general," Vettel said, "is that once there is a lot of water, visibility is very poor and once there's too much water, the inter tire doesn't work anymore and the extreme wet only has a very, very narrow window where it works because also, with a lot of water on the track, water drainage on the extreme tires is not as good as it probably should be."

The race started at 3 p.m. with impending rain coming from Typhoon Phanfone. Although sunset was at 5:31 p.m., the organizers refused to start the race earlier because the fans were still arriving at the track. A heavy rain just before the start drenched the track and so the race was started behind the safety car. But the track was so wet that the race was stopped after just two laps.

Ten minutes later, the track had dried somewhat and the race resumed behind the safety car that stayed out until the end of lap 9. Pole sitter Rosberg was in front until lap 12 and then pitted to switch from extreme wet tires to the intermediate wet tires. Hamilton led two laps and then did the same.

Rosberg then led to lap 28. But Hamilton had the faster car and passed him at the start of lap 29.

"Fairly straightforward, really," Hamilton said of the pass. "I had a lot more pace than Nico. This is not a very easy circuit to follow but fortunately I was able to get quite close and particularly in the last corner. I think perhaps he had a small oversteer moment out of the last corner and I didn't. Obviously the DRS enabled me to get alongside.

"I was fairly confident with the balance of the car so I put it there and stuck it out. And after that it was really about trying to...you know, the whole approach changed after that because I was attacking, attacking and after that, I kind of took different lines and managed it differently. But it felt very reminiscent of a time years and years ago, of 2008, and it was a great feeling in that respect."

Hamilton would lead the rest of the race. Scheduled for 53 laps, it was stopped at the end of lap 46 after Bianchi's accident. As per the rules in a red flag situation like this, the finished order reverts to what it was two laps earlier. So Rosberg finished second in the 44 lap race.

"Today was a really tough race with the wet conditions," Rosberg said. "I struggled a lot with the balance of my car on the intermediate tires, so I had to push hard to keep Lewis behind me. I had a lot of oversteering which is why the rear end of my car was very nervous.

"That was really strange and I didn't have the necessary confidence in the corners; we need to look into that in the next few days. It meant that Lewis was quicker today and deserved the win. It was damage limitation with losing only seven points to him. For the team it was a good result with another1-2."

Vettel had made a late pit stop which allowed his teammate Daniel Ricciardo to move into third place. But because the finishing order was from lap 44 instead of lap 46, Vettel was classed third and Ricciardo fourth.

"The safety car came out and I think we were aware that Adrian went off in turn 7," Vettel said, "and obviously it was difficult to see what happened after that. From a racing point of view, the safety car comes in and we saw that there was quite a good gap and so we decided to pit and lost only one position.

"Obviously it was great to be on the podium; this is my favorite track, and it's for sure very nice in those tricky conditions. In the end, I don't think it really matters. I think the most important thing, as we're all probably thinking, is that we hope the best for Jules."

Ricciardo said a podium didn't mean anything on this particular afternoon.

"Right now we're all thinking about Bianchi and that's the biggest concern for us," he said. "We heard he had a pretty big crash and it's not nice when we don't know if the driver is okay. The race was tricky, it wasn't going too badly and the set-up we had for yesterday paid off. We tried a few different things with the strategy, but Bianchi is my main concern at the moment."

Jenson Button drove a spirited race in the McLaren and, thanks to making an early switch to the intermediate tires, was able to get up to third. He eventually finished fifth ahead of Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa who struggled in the wet because of the lack of downforce on their Williams cars

"At least we still got some points," said Bottas. "Today the pace of the car in the wet was not enough for more, but we made the most out of the strategy and everything we had. We did a good job but we simply didn't have a quick enough car to score more points.

"The corners become a bit too long for us in these conditions. We spend more time in the corners and we know we're still missing something, compared to Mercedes and Red Bull, in the corners. We're missing some grip and that shows a lot more in the wet."

Force India teammates Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez finished eighth and 10th.

"Up until the final laps my race was going pretty well," Hulkenberg said. "I had good pace and a good feeling with the car. We made some progress early on, pitted late and we were able to jump a few cars in the first stop. I can't say it was a very eventful afternoon for me; I was on my own for most of the time.

"The conditions were pretty difficult right from the start: visibility was pretty poor, even if you were in the first half of the pack. It was probably the same for everyone because it's always a challenge in the wet. When the final safety car came out we decided to pit again as I had already been out on those tires for a long time and I needed new rubber to finish the race."

Perez said the conditions were very difficult.

"When we started the race I could not even see the car ahead of me," he pointed out. "To begin with, it was just a race to avoid aquaplaning and trying to keep the car on the track because the visibility was very poor. Our strategy was working quite well, but I think we were unlucky to make our final stop, which dropped me down a couple of positions."

Jean-Eric Vergne grabbed points by finishing ninth in his Toro Rosso.

"I was very happy about my race until I was informed about Jules' accident," he said. "As for me, starting from the back of the grid and ending up in the points at the end is a great achievement. Today, in such racing conditions, it was really difficult not to make mistakes, while driving as fast as possible, trying to be quick, but I believe that myself and the team did an excellent job."

After the race there was plenty of debate about safety, and if the race should have been started earlier, and when the safety car should have come out, and if there was too much water on the track, and if the FIA should have done anything differently and so on.

"When the race started the conditions were fine," Button said, "and I came straight into the pits to get intermediate tires. There's a fine line between not being able to see and the tires not being the right tires. There is more spray than standing water, so I think it was safe conditions.

"I think the FIA did a really good job at controlling the situation. They are listening to the drivers - we want to go racing, but we want to do it in safe conditions. It's the spray that makes it dangerous, not the standing water, but I think they did a great job today."

Was it still safe to continue racing?

"Obviously it had started to rain a bit more, and in that part of the track (Turn 7) it gets a bit wet," said Kimi Raikkonen who finished 12th in his Ferrari, "but if you stay on the racing line it's a bit better. For sure it was close to change for full wets, but there was a safety car and yellow flags.

"Was it safe? Is it ever safe? I cannot say, the weather conditions were getting trickier and with used tires it's always trickier."

Former F1 driver Niki Lauda said: "Motor racing is dangerous. We get used to it if nothing happens and then we are suddenly all surprised. But we always have to be aware that motor racing is very dangerous. This accident was the coming together of various difficult things. One car goes off, the (recovery) truck goes out, and then the next car goes off. This was very unfortunate.

"In the end the rain was not the real issue of the race. There were safety cars put in and the race was run safe more or less to the end. So it could have been run to the end without the accident, so the darkness I don't think was an issue."

Formula 1 will learn from all of this.

"The lesson learned is that in the difficult conditions of today in the rain that it could have been done differently because of the rain and the chance to go off was certainly bigger," stated Lauda.

It was a dark day at Suzuka.