Max Verstappen stood in front of a video wall, he gave an interview to the moderator Johnny Herbert, he had won the race in Suzuka. But he wasn’t world champion yet. He had collected 341 points before the Grand Prix in Japan this season, and now he’s still missing one point. In numbers: 1. Decision postponed, he thought. That’s what everyone thought.
Verstappen left the stage and stood on the edge again so that his panelmates Charles Leclerc and Sergio Perez could be questioned when Herbert suddenly called him back onto the stage in front of the microphone. “Max, we just heard that Charles got a 5 second penalty, congratulations you’re world champion!” As if to prove it, some cheering animations now appeared on the video wall. But now it was like this: Everyone had expected the 5-second penalty. Leclerc had gone off track in the very last chicane of the race (which, of course, fitted perfectly into the overall picture of what had been a wild Scuderia season), so everyone assumed he would lose his second-place finish to Verstappen’s team-mate Perez. Alone: Verstappen still didn’t understand why he was world champion. concept nobody. “It’s not me,” said the 25-year-old defending champion in amazement. Because wasn’t he still missing a point?
Fia relies on a rule clause – and makes Verstappen the world champion
Due to a race being stopped and a rain break of more than two hours, the race ended after the time limit had been reached. What nobody suspected: the international automobile association Fia invoked a clause and still awarded the full number of points, even though fewer than the prescribed 75 percent of the 53 laps were completed – namely only 28. This rule only applies if the race fails after an interruption could be resumed, the rule guardians explained with some delay. So the number of laps completed no longer plays a role in scoring? If you looked for logic, you couldn’t find any even hours later.
“It was a huge surprise for all of us,” said Helmut Marko, Red Bull’s sporting director, whose cheerful expression still showed traces of confusion. Also because this fifth-to-last race of the season triggered further debates that will probably be talked about for a long time.
Verstappen started from pole position on Sunday, with Ferrari drivers Leclerc and Carlos Sainz lurking behind him, followed by his team-mate Sergio Perez. The rain was already heavy in Suzuka when the drivers rolled onto the demanding track on mixed tyres. And it would increase, the drivers were informed of this by their respective weather forecasters or rain radar specialists. How fast and how strong, that came as a surprise. The cars rolled only a few meters, then most of them realized that they should have strapped on rain tires.
Vettel collides with Alonso after the start – Gasly drives advertising boards for a walk
The lights went out, spray sprayed from the rear wheels onto the visors. Visibility conditions were the same as in the car wash. Leclerc rolled off faster than Verstappen, already had the front wing in front, but the Dutchman stayed hard on the gas and the racing line, fighting back the lead in the early bends. Sebastian Vettel, who was blissfully turning ninth onto his favorite track for the last time, collided with Fernando Alonso before the first corner and was going straight. Next, Sainz turned into the advertising board on a water film, which flew high into the air and landed on Pierre Gasly’s hood, which the Frenchman then drove for a walk. “What the hell is that?” he shouted into the radio: “I can’t see forward anymore!”
Nothing to see here: Shortly after the start, the race in Suzuka was interrupted due to pouring rain.
(Photo: Mark Thompson/Getty Images)
Various repetitions showed how dangerous the scene was for Sainz: The Spaniard rolled back after the gang contact and stood across the asphalt. “That was the scariest part,” Sainz later said. “I stood in the middle of the track, saw cars coming – and I knew that they couldn’t see me.”
Another part of Sainz’s Ferrari hit the cockpit of Mick Schumacher, who nonetheless used the confusion to fight his way up from 15th to 10th place. The safety car deployed. And when Alex Albon’s trip to Japan ended in the gravel bed, the race organizers couldn’t see the track anymore because of the water, flying parts and wrecked cars and waved the red flag. Abandoned race.
Recovery crane on the route causes a moment of shock – in Suzuka of all places
But the pilots were still on the track. Above all Gasly, who had let himself be missed a new front in the pits and was now trying to catch up with the field of drivers with speed. The shock went through his bones when he suddenly saw a recovery vehicle rushing past him on the left-hand side of the track, which had suddenly appeared like the Flying Dutchman out of the fog. He saw it late. Much too late to respond with a braking manoeuvre. “What is this tractor doing on the track?” he cried out indignantly. “I could have killed myself there!”
The recovery vehicle had already been deployed before the race was stopped, and the other drivers had also happened – albeit at a reduced speed behind the safety car. And Gasly, despite the red flashing lights at the side of the track, hadn’t slowed down anywhere near the required speed. On the one hand.
On the other hand, the heavy equipment – without any time pressure – rolled straight onto the track when there were still cars on the track.
Here of all places, in Suzuka?
On the track where Formula 1 learned one of the bitterest lessons in its history eight years ago. After an accident involving Adrian Sutil, Marussia driver Jules Bianchi collided with a similar recovery crane in similarly poor visibility. After nine months in a coma, he succumbed to his injuries.
Gasly drove too fast, but had little warning time – and the recovery vehicle was actually in no hurry
The Fia announced an investigation into the scene and promptly released a statement: The red flags were waved before “Car 10 passed the scene of the incident where it had been damaged on the previous lap”. The justification for the investigation stated that Gasly was over 250 km/h when he passed the scene of the accident with the recovery crane. That might be the correct reading according to the regulations.
Smaller and bigger shock: Pierre Gasly first flew an advertising board onto the car, later the Frenchman almost collided with a recovery vehicle.
(Photo: Philip Fong/AFP)
Nevertheless, there were obviously good reasons why Formula 1 did not include a repeat of the almost collision with the ghost truck in its official TV image. Because there you could see that Gasly hardly had any warning time, the red lights only flickered on a few seconds before the encounter. Again: there would have been nothing wrong with waiting until all the cars had made it to the safety of their pit lane – or at least had found the connection to the safety car – before starting the rescue work. There was no pilot on the route who needed first aid.
The rain fell incessantly. And then the waiting began. Dark memories of another Grand Prix now came to mind. At those of Spa last year. After heavy rain, aborted starts and postponements, Formula 1 started a racing farce in the rainy Ardennes with only two laps behind the safety car before the race was stopped – and rated Verstappen as the winner with half the number of points.
Drivers and those responsible express their outrage at the near-crash
And while we waited, the debate about Gasly’s near-catastrophe picked up steam. “What the hell. How did this happen?” wrote Lando Norris on Twitter. “Years ago we lost a life in such an incident. We risk our lives. Especially in such circumstances. We want to race. But that’s unacceptable.” Sergio Perez also wrote: “How can we make it clear that we never want to see a crane on the line?”
“This is completely unacceptable,” said Red Bull’s Christian Horner. “There must be a thorough investigation into why the vehicle was on the track.” Frédéric Vasseur, Alpha Romeo’s team boss, defended Gasly: ”In such conditions, it doesn’t matter whether he drives 250 or 50 km/h. He just can’t look ahead enough.”
136 minutes after the actual start of the race, the drivers rolled off again, this time on rain tires, with a crawl behind the safety car. 41 minutes before the end of the time limit, Bernd Mayländer released the race again.
Leclerc asked how many positions he would lose in the event of a pit stop. Today the title shouldn’t go to Verstappen after all. “Five,” his team replied. Leclerc’s tires once again gave way more than those of Verstappen. Fifteen minutes before the end, the Dutchman had opened up a lead of 14 seconds. His teammate Perez pushed Leclerc closer and closer to the rear, put pressure on him – in the very last chicane he shooed him off the track.
At Red Bull, they scrapped the idea of sending Verstappen on fresh tires chasing the fastest race lap to get the one point that was still missing. Those responsible at Red Bull could not have guessed that it would be enough.