F1 is turning Japanese for the first time since 2019, and one of the best tracks on the calendar deserves our best effort, and so will our 2022 Japanese Grand Prix Results, Lap by Lap Review & Summary be seen as our best? Depends on the race itself.
Our review covers what happened in the race so you don’t have to with our laps that matter. Plus we throw in our Race Ratings, the Best (Great) and Worst (Grape) drivers of the race weekend.
The 2022 Japanese Grand Prix Results, Lap by Lap Review & Summary gives you just enough to catch up with. With just a small serving of cynicism. The perfect bite sized review for those who couldn’t be bothered, or don’t have enough time.
And why not check out our latest Grand Prix Power Rankings which highlight our driver of the season so far and the last race.
2022 Japanese Grand Prix Results
THE LAPS THAT MATTERED
Didn’t see the race live? Don’t have time to watch the whole race? Well here are the top laps where stuff happened. We write these live as we go, sort of like a minute by minute for the football, but marginally more interesting.
Setting the scene – It’s another wet Grand Prix, and it doesn’t appear to be raining too hard, but the track it plenty wet. Thankfully not too wet to stuff around with the start like they did in Monaco, and hopefully the Suzuka being a proper racing track will mean that the wet weather tyres won’t be as useless for racing as they were in Singapore. Excitement awaits, a wet race on the one of the best tracks of the season. Pierre Gasly starts from the pitlane if you were interested.
GRID – VER LEC SAI PER OCO HAM ALO RUS VET NOR
Lap 1 – Pole sitter Verstappen gets away slower than second placed Leclerc and the Ferrari leads into the first half of the first corner, but Verstappen simply drives around the outside to claim the lead. Further back, who knows with the huge amount of spray. Vettel spins but recovers. Further around the first lap Carlos Sainz is in the barriers and out of the race. Vision then flicks to Pierre Gasly who is driving around with a large chunk of something under the front of his car. Then there’s Alex Albon who is appears to be also out. Need some serious replays to sort this out.
They show Alonso is the one who hit Vettel. Carlos Sainz simply loses it and is extremely lucky that he isn’t hit as he bounces off the barrier back onto the track with cars passing at frightening speed. Zhou spins at the hairpin but continues. Alex Albon somehow manages a mechanical failure for his retirement. Replays also show how bad the visibility was including Pierre Gasly’s running into some advertising signage, quite scary that is.
SAFETY CAR DEPLOYED
It’s raining quite hard now and….
RACE IS STOPPED WITH RED FLAG
ORDER – VER LEC PER OCO HAM ALO RUS RIC TSU MSC
So the winners of the first lap for a change is Daniel Ricciardo who stays out of trouble and climbs from 11th to 8th and home hero Yuki Tsunoda jumped from 13th to 9th. Losers obviously Sainz, Albon and Vettel, and Lando Norris who fell from 10th to 13th.
Cue attempts to keep viewers interested, luckily for Australian viewers there’s the Bathurst 1000 to keep ourselves busy with. Notice from Race Control – the race is scheduled to restart 50 minutes after the original race start time with a rolling start.
Then it isn’t. The start is delayed until further notice.
In the meantime, there’s things to discuss. Like Pierre Gasly speeding behind the Safety Car, but worse is the reports there was a recovery vehicle on the track while the cars were circulating behind the Safety Car. As mentioned in the coverage this was the track in 2014 where Jules Bianchi died after hitting a recovery vehicle in the wet while behind a Safety Car. Utter madness.
Eventually over two hours after the initial start time, we are advised that the race will restart with full wets, and under the safety car.
At least we get a race.
RACE RESTARTS BEHIND SAFETY CAR
Drivers are reporting better visibility and it appears to be raining less, so we’ll see how long we’ll stay behind the Safety Car. It looks bloody dark though, how much sunlight is left? They are only driving at “just” 100 km/h.
After a few laps behind the Safety Car, the lights are off and we are due to race again. Hmmm, how long will this last? There are just over 40 minutes left to race.
1st Lap after Restart – Max Verstappen gets the race back underway and he enjoys full visibility at the front, behind him the cars crawl behind. The drivers all behave themselves and the order stays reasonably static. Vettel and Latifi pits for Inters. And they nearly collided in the pitlane. Bold and brave or foolish? We’ll see. Norris and Bottas also pit at the end of lap one.
ORDER – VER LEC PER OCO HAM ALO RUS RIC TSU MSC
36 mins to go – The top drivers pit except for Fernando Alonso. It seems too wet for Inters but we’ll see. Daniel Ricciardo also stays out on the full wets. A rain shower here would be great for those down on their luck.
ORDER – ALO* RIC* MSC* VER ZHO* LEC PER OCO HAM VET (* did not pit)
34 mins to go – Alonso and Ricciardo both pit. Verstappen overtakes Mick Schumacher and goes from fourth to first in one straight. Leclerc passes Schumacher half a lap later, by which time he is five seconds behind Verstappen.
ORDER – VER LEC MSC* PER ZHO* OCO HAM VET ALO LAT
Can you believe it, the early pitstop working for Latifi – he is 10th.
30 mins to go – Ocon passes Mick Schumacher while Lewis Hamilton is delayed as the Haas continues on his full wets. He gets by a few corners later. Vettel and Alonso are now on the Haas’ tail and the German gets by into the hairpin, and Alonso a corner later. Latifi too gets by, that’s an indication of a lack of speed. He pits at the end of the lap.
ORDER – VER LEC PER OCO HAM VET ALO LAT NOR TSU
27 mins to go – The front two of Verstappen and Leclerc are miles quicker than the rest, trading fastest laps. Verstappen needs a win and fastest lap to seal the Championship here. Verstappen is 6.9 seconds ahead of Leclerc who is 7.7 seconds ahead of third placed Perez. All in all, the drivers are behaving and doing a really good job. There’s not been another retirement since the restart.
23 mins to go – radio comms says there may be some more rain coming. George Russell nails Yuki Tsunoda in a classic overtake around the outside in the esses for 10th. Russell gets by Norris half a lap later too. Good driver that lad.
19 mins to go – Lewis Hamilton is still challenging Esteban Ocon and still behind Esteban Ocon. And may well be for many laps to come. But there’s radio talk about Ocon pitting for new tyres, but nothing happens. And Ocon somehow manages to stay ahead of Hamilton despite the Mercedes looking the quicker car. Ten minutes later and Hamilton is still behind.
New tyres might be interesting if someone can afford to lose the pitlane time to do it.
15 mins to go – Zhou is the first to pit for a new set of tyres. Which is interesting as he was one of the last to take the full wets off.
11 mins to go – OK, surely there’s something else happening other than Ocon-Hamilton. Further ahead Perez is catching Leclerc, so we might have another battle to view hopefully in the next few laps. Guanyu Zhou sets fastest lap for fun, and those who bet their street money on a big value contender.
8 mins to go – Fernando Alonso gives the fans something other than Hamilton-Ocon and pits for new tyres. He drops to 10th only, and let’s hope there’s some fun ahead in the last few minutes.
7 mins to go – Finally. The TV moves to the Perez – Leclerc battle. For the record, Verstappen is 20 seconds ahead of these two.
6 mins to go – Alonso has already overtaken two cars and is 8th. He is ten seconds behind George Russell. Latifi is still 9th and points are on the cards. That will shut us up.
ORDER – VER LEC PER OCO HAM VET RUS ALO LAT NOR
2 mins to go – Perez is still battling Leclerc and getting awfully close. Further ahead Max Verstappen asks his team if he can have new tyres to set fastest lap. He is denied by his team.
Last lap – Max Verstappen cruises to victory and makes it look easy. It is easy for him to be fair, he’s the best this season. Further back Perez and Leclerc almost touch at the hairpin, close but good driving, Leclerc takes second then from Perez, just. But then we see footage of the Ferrari cutting the chicane, so stand by for that placing. Further back Hamilton couldn’t get past Ocon. Alonso gets within a whisker of Vettel for 6th with his fancy new tyres. Further back the top ten Is filled with Russell
FINAL ORDER – VER LEC* PER* OCO HAM VET ALO RUS LAT NOR (* as they crossed line)
Post Race – Charles Leclerc is given a five second penalty for cutting the chicane on the last lap, handing second place over to Sergio Perez. Furthermore, the FIA decide that full points will be awarded for the race, not the discounted rate that had been shown and discussed all race. Which meant that Max Verstappen had actually also won the Drivers Championship.
2022 Japanese Grand Prix Results
RACE RATING
Was it a good race, loads of action, tense, or just a big, fat, snooze-fest.
We rate the big race itself so we know which races to go back and watch in the off season or one to simply remember the winner for the post season quiz nights.
SEASON IMPORTANCE – 10 / 10
The race where Max Verstappen wins the Drivers Championship should be important enough for the season.
ON TRACK ACTION – 5 / 10
For a wet race it was less action than we expected. The second stint of the race showing all the drivers to be disappointingly competent. There were a few battles that lasted a while but was mainly the slightly faster car unable to find a way past – like Hamilton v Ocon where the two were less than a second apart for most of the race.
ENDING 7 / 10
The Perez v Leclerc battle was good and went right to the finish line. Fernando Alonso’s late pit stop for tyres lit up the last few laps, if the TV could pull themselves away from the battles further up the road.
OVERALL RATING 22 / 30
A good race once it got going, and we guess we should be thankful that something happened at all.
2022 SEASON RATINGS SO FAR
Want to know what we thought of previous races? Or which ones to to back and watch?
R1 Bahrain Grand Prix 26/30
R2 Saudi Arabia Grand Prix 21/30
R3 Australian Grand Prix 16/30
R4 Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix 17/30
R5 Miami Grand Prix 19/30
R6 Spanish Grand Prix 17/30
R7 Monaco Grand Prix 24/30
R8 Azerbaijan Grand Prix 22/30
R9 Canadian Grand Prix 21/30
R10 British Grand Prix 26.5/30
R11 Austrian Grand Prix 24/30
R12 French Grand Prix 17/30
R13 Hungarian Grand Prix 23/30
R14 Belgian Grand Prix 17/30
R15 Dutch Grand Prix 21/30
R16 Italian Grand Prix 11/30
R17 Singapore Grand Prix 15/30
2022 Japanese Grand Prix Results
GREAT & GRAPE OF THE RACE
Here we go through the field and highlight the very best (Great) of the race, and the plodders, the over-ambitious, the out of luck, and simply hopeless (Grape).
These points get added to our Driver of the Season scores. Five points for a great nomination, and -5 for the worst or grapest driver in the pack. Then it is +2 /-2 for honourable or dishonourable mentions.
It used to be called the good, bad and ugly, but everyone is using that now. And who doesn’t like grapes.
THE GREAT-EST – MAX VERSTAPPEN
Took Pole Position, and simply out-drove everyone in the field to win his second World Championship. Yeah, we challenge to find someone who had a better day.
HONOURABLE MENTIONS
SERGIO PEREZ – Followed up his great Singapore result with a solid second place here, and helping his team mate to the title.
ESTEBAN OCON – Good qualifying followed up by a determined drive in the race to fourth. Somehow held off Lewis Hamilton for most of the Grand Prix despite intense pressure.
FERNANDO ALONSO – Was a factor as always in most sessions, and a later pitstop than most for the first tyre change probably cost him more points. But his last pitstop did provide a bit of entertainment and a glimpse to show he’s not done yet.
NICHOLAS LATIFI – Two points for ninth. He was one of the early pitstoppers for Inters and held it together to keep 9th.
SEBASTIAN VETTEL – Last Japanese Grand Prix and he did another solid job for Aston Martin. 6th place is about as good as it gets.
THE GRAPE-EST – FIA
The way Max Verstappen was awarded the points today for the World Championship is another chapter of the FIA seemingly not knowing how their own rules work, or making decisions on the fly. From the Safety Car finish in Italy, to the over-the-top scheduling in Singapore, and now looking like they changed their minds over the amount of points handed out for today’s race.
DIS-HONOURABLE MENTIONS
CARLOS SAINZ – Just a passenger as he slid off on the first lap of the race. Looked quick all weekend too. Shame for him. Will need a strong start to 2023 if he doesn’t want to spend a season as Leclerc’s lackey.
PIERRE GASLY – Had to start from pit lane, reprimanded for going too fast when then had a massive advertising sign get lodged under the front of his car with no warning. Finished dead last too.
ALEX ALBON – A wasted opportunity given his tema mate finished 9th.
2022 F1 Season Power Rankings
Stay tuned for our Power Rankings from the race soon as it is currently being calculated.
