Ohayō from Suzuka in Japan, for the 4th race of the Championship season, one of the most iconic race circuits left on the calendar and one which the drivers really appreciate. Aston Martin brought a number of upgrades to their cars, including changes to the floor, the bodywork & the beam wing and the circuit would provide a good indication as to how far the AMR24 had progressed over the AMR23, as the last Japanese Grand Prix was in late September 2023, when Alonso finished 8th & Stroll did not finish, due to a fractured rear wing. The upgrades were installed on Stroll’s car first to be tried out during Friday’s Free Practice sessions. However, despite Stroll being comfortable with them he only finished FP1 15th fastest, while Alonso recorded the 7th fastest time. FP2 was effectively abandoned as the session was rendered useless by the weather, due to intermittent light rain meaning the track was too wet for dry-weather tyres and too dry for wets, so only three drivers set lap times.
The following day, the weather cleared up and the upgrades had been added overnight onto Alonso’s car as well. They clearly seemed to be working for him as he finished FP3 5th fastest, but Stroll was struggling & only managed to be 18th fastest, 1.26 seconds slower than his team-mate.
This difference in their respective times would get reduced slightly later on in Qualifying, when in Q1, after the first runs Alonso was 2nd fastest, just 0.388 of second behind Verstappen, with Stroll a further 0.77 of a second adrift & in 11th place. Alonso didn't go out again, but Stroll had to go out but didn’t manage to post a faster time, whereas all the drivers behind him did manage to go faster & Stroll ended up tumbling down the order to 16th & getting knocked out in the 1st round of Qualifying. More concerning was that there didn’t seem to be a reason for this difference. Afterwards Stroll commented "I just didn't have the pace I needed in Qualifying today and we don't yet understand why. I think I was pushing to the limit of what my car was capable of, but I was lacking the speed to get out of Q1.” Fortunately, Alonso battled on, on his own and he finished 5th in Q2, again going out just once and managed to finish 5th fastest in the final qualifying session, after lying only 7th after everyone’s initial runs, but managed to find a couple of tenths of a second to get further up the order.
All was set for Sunday’s race and the grid was noticeable for the wide variety of different tyres the cars would start on. The AMR24s would start with Alonso on soft tyres, hoping to get a faster, grippier start and Stroll on medium tyres, hoping to go deeper into the race. Off the cars set, in glorious sunshine and they hadn’t even reached the end of the 1st sector on the 1st lap when due to a poor start by Riccardo, who got in the way of Albon & tangled with him while defending his position from Stroll. Both Riccardo & Albon piled heavily into a tyre barrier & the race had to be red-flagged. Stroll was extremely fortunate that Riccardo didn't take him out as he spun round. During the 30-minute interlude, the stricken cars had to be retrieved and the tyre wall rebuilt & then the race got underway again from a standing start. Due to the absence of the 2 damaged cars, Stroll started 15th, had a good start & managed to get himself up to 12th on the opening lap. There he had a few early lap battles, losing the place to Bottas, but gaining it back again when he overtook Ocon. On lap 7 Bottas came into the pits for fresh tyres very early, followed by Tsunoda on the following lap, thus promoting Stroll up to 10th & behind Russell. Upfront meanwhile, Piastri had gained on Alonso & was slotting in & out of DRS range of him. Norris came in for new tyres on lap 12, elevating Alonso to 4th briefly. Stroll was starting to lose time behind Russell, due to the degradation of his tyres, so Stroll came in for a new set on lap 13, coming out way down the order, in 17th. Alonso also came in for a tyre change on the following lap & managed to get serviced by the pit crew extremely effectively & came out 8th, still ahead of Piastri. McLaren had clearly tried to undercut Alonso, but it hadn’t worked. Now on fresher tyres, Stroll passed Gasly in the Alpine, Hulkenberg in the Haas on lap 16 & Ocon, in the other Alpine, a lap later. He was now right on the tail on Tsunoda, the Japanese crowd’s home favourite.
Back at the front Alonso passed Hamilton on lap 22 & was then up to 6th after Russell came into the pits for new tyres. Stroll also came into the pits for hard tyres, but there was commotion in the pit lane as 5 cars stopped all at the same time. Stroll was released into a group of cars all vying for position, some of them 2 abreast, which the stewards investigated but decided, many laps later, no further action should be taken.
Back on track Stroll came out 13th but quickly dispensed with Ocon, so up to 12th. But he had a hard time of trying to pass Tsunoda, even though he was within DRS range for 10 laps.
Meanwhile Alonso had got up to 4th again, after Norris and Leclerc had come in for tyre changes, then Alonso came in for his 2nd & final stop on lap 34, dropping him down to 8th. A lap later, Stroll came into the pits again, for a 3rd stop to put on soft tyres, hoping to gain places in the final laps & came out 13th. Further up, Alonso was being chased by Piastri, who was again getting within DRS range but not able to pass. On lap 38 Russell peeled off into the pits elevating Alonso up to 7th and then a few laps later, with Alonso and Piastri both catching Hamilton in 6th, he came into the pits. Back to Stroll, he passed Bottas on lap 45 & Magnussen on lap 47 & with
6 laps to go he had to close a gap of 7.5 seconds to Tsunoda to get into the points but wasn’t able to. The final 5 laps had a great feud between Piastri and Russell, behind Alonso fortunately and that is where he finished – in 6th, collecting 8 championship points for himself & the Team. Stroll unfortunately got overtaken on the very last lap by Hulkenberg and took 11th place from Stroll. So no points for him.
After the race, Fernando said “I think it was one of my best races or my best weekends. I think it was very complete and very strong, very solid. It was a great weekend for me with fifth position in Qualifying yesterday and sixth place in the race. It was one of my best for a while. I think we slightly outperformed our true position here this weekend, but we are executing our races very well this season and scoring good points for the team. Our plan for today worked well and a special thanks for the pitstops which were very impressive, so credit to all of the team for that”.
It was definitely a very captivating race and even though Red Bull secured another 1-2 finish there was never a dull moment in the race due to all the different tyre strategies that were in place. For now then it’s sayonara from Japan - next stop will be Shanghai in China in 2 weeks’ time, where the Teams haven’t been since before the Covid pandemic outbreak, so in many ways this will be a new circuit for many of the drivers. Another report after that race.
Edward Jensen – if you want to join the WhatsApp group follow this link: https://chat.whatsapp.com/BnZvzZwTnKzI67DFs1rz4L