F1: Hamilton wins wet red-flagged Japanese Grand Prix overshadowed as Bianchi in critical condition

Suzuka, October 5, 2014 – Lewis Hamilton won a prematurely-ended Japanese Grand Prix to extend his championship lead. The rainy conditions, as a result of the ”Phanfone typhoon’. Nico Rosberg finished second, with Sebastian Vettel third. The race was stopped on lap 47, following an accident and recovery of Adrian Sutil’s Sauber car at turn 7 followed immediately after in the same spot involving the Marussia of Jules Bianchi, at the end of lap 42. Bianchi hit the rear end of stationary tele-handling vehicle as it was starting to recover Sutil’s car. Bianchi was rushed to nearby hospital still in an unconscious state and remains in a critical condition. An update on his condition is expected shortly.

With heavy rain falling before the start, the race began under the safety car but was quickly halted as conditions became undriveable. The cars were guided to pit lane where the field awaited a restart.

That came after a 20-minute delay, with the cars again taking to the track behind the safety car. It was during this period that fifth-on-the-grid Fernando Alonso’s race came to an end. The Ferrari driver had a sudden power loss due to electrical problems and he was forced to pull over and quit the race.

With the rain abating, drivers began to radio through that the track was almost good enough to swap from the starting wet tyres mandated by officials because of the conditions to intermediate rubber.

The safety car left the circuit after nine laps and by lap 11 the field began to dive towards pit lane for intermediate tyres. First in was McLaren’s Jenson Button and his quick thinking allowed him to leap up the order. After the stops had played out, Rosberg led with a two-second advantage over Hamilton, with Button now third, having started from eighth on the grid.

Behind him were the Williams pair of Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa but with the FW36 looking ungainly in the wet, they were being quickly chased down by the Red Bulls of Sebastian Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo in sixth and seventh respectively.

Vettel passed Massa for fifth on lap 16 with a deft move at the hairpin and then repeated the move on Bottas two laps later. Ricciardo wasn’t about to be left out and made his own perhaps bolder move, passing the Williams with moves around the outside through the ‘esses’ on laps 17 and 19.

Ahead, Rosberg was complaining of severe issues with oversteer and when DRS was enabled in the improving conditions on lap 25 it was the cue for Hamilton to make a sustained assault on Rosberg’s lead. The championship leader eventually swept past his team-mate into Turn One on lap 29 under DRS. He immediately began to pull out a gap and it was clear that the battle for the lead was over.

Behind them Vettel made an early second stop, looking to undercut third-placed Button. McLaren responded and brought the Briton in. However a a change of steering wheel saw Button stationary for too long and Vettel and Ricciardo swept by to relegate the McLaren man to fifth.

Ricciardo ran a longer second stint, but it seemed to provide little advantage and when he eventually made his second stop he was passed by Button. However, he quickly used his pace advantage to close on the Englishman.

The McLaren driver defended bravely for several laps and that allowed Vettel ahead to pull out a decent gap, which surely frustrated Riccirado.

The Australian eventually moved past Button on lap 44 but by that time Vettel was five seconds up the road and it seemed the four-time Japanese Grand Prix winner had done enough to take third place.

On the previous lap, Adrian Sutil had gone off track at Turn Seven and a recovery vehicle went to the scene to remove his stranded Sauber. A lap later, however, Bianchi went off at the same location and appeared to collide with the recovery vehicle. The safety car was dispatched, along with the medical car.

Vettel pitted under the safety car for new intermediate tyres and rejoined behind Ricciardo. However with an ambulance also now on track the race was red-flagged on lap 47 of the allotted 53 and the cars guided back to pit lane. It was soon announced that there would be no resumption.

With the result counted back to the end of the penultimate lap before the red flag was shown (thus, to lap 44) the order saw Hamilton take his eighth win of the season ahead of Rosberg, with Vettel third. Fourth place went to Ricciardo, with Button fifth ahead of Bottas, Massa, Hulkenberg and Jean-Eric Vergne, who put in an excellent drive to rise from 20^th to ninth. The final point was taken by Force India’s Sergio Perez.

Lewis Hamilton –Our first thoughts go to Jules – it overshadows everything else when one of our colleagues is injured and we are praying for him. Next to this, the race result doesn’t seem significant at all. Nico and I had a tough battle, we were pushing really hard. I had a big moment at Turn One when I was too late getting off the DRS as I was just pushing so hard but fortunately I was able to get back on track. The conditions were difficult throughout but I had more pace than Nico today and could follow him quite comfortably in the early stages. This is not an easy circuit for following another car or for overtaking, but he made a mistake out of the last corner and I was able to pass. The whole approach then needed to change to look after the tyres and make sure I stayed in the lead until the end of the race. But like I said, that’s not what matters today; our thoughts are with Jules. 
 
Nico Rosberg –My thoughts are with our colleague Jules and his family and team-mates, and we are hoping for some positive news. Today was a really tough race with the wet conditions. I struggled a lot with the balance of my car on the intermediate tyres, 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. 

Adrian Sutil (car number 99):Sauber C33-Ferrari (Chassis 03/Ferrari)
“My thoughts are with Jules who went off in the same place as I did. Everything else is irrevelevant at this point in time. Everybody in the paddock should think of him, and I hope that he is in good hands. It was a difficult race in difficult conditions.”

 

2014 Japanese Grand Prix – Race Result

1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 44 1:51:43.021 2 25
2 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 44 +9.1 secs 1 18
3 Sebastian Vettel Red Bull Racing-Renault 44 +29.1 secs 9 15
4 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull Racing-Renault 44 +38.8 secs 6 12
5 Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 44 +67.5 secs 8 10
6 Valtteri Bottas Williams-Mercedes 44 +113.7 secs 3 8
7 Felipe Massa Williams-Mercedes 44 +115.1 secs 4 6
8 Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes 44 +115.9 secs 13 4
9 Jean-Eric Vergne STR-Renault 44 +127.6 secs 20 2
10 Sergio Perez Force India-Mercedes 43 +1 Lap 11 1
11 Daniil Kvyat STR-Renault 43 +1 Lap 12
12 Kimi Räikkönen Ferrari 43 +1 Lap 10
13 Esteban Gutierrez Sauber-Ferrari 43 +1 Lap 15
14 Kevin Magnussen McLaren-Mercedes 43 +1 Lap 7
15 Romain Grosjean Lotus-Renault 43 +1 Laps 16
16 Pastor Maldonado Lotus-Renault 43 +1 Lap 22
17 Marcus Ericsson Caterham-Renault 43 +1 Lap 17
18 Max Chilton Marussia-Ferrari 43 +1 Lap 21
19 Kamui Kobayashi Caterham-Renault 43 +1 Lap 19
20 Jules Bianchi Marussia-Ferrari 41 Accident 18
21 Adrian Sutil Sauber-Ferrari 40 Accident 14
Ret 14 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 2 Electronics 5