Background

Ferrari introduced a new livery, carrying the logo of Mission Winnow, a joint promotion with major sponsor Philip Morris International.^[3]

Pirelli opted to bring the supersoft, the soft, and the medium tire to the 2018 Japanese Grand Prix. Lewis Hamilton was the defending winner, having won the previous round in Russia. He was also the defending winner at Suzuka, having won the previous Japanese Grand Prix in 2017. Weather was a potential factor, with a chance of rain through many sessions of the weekend.^[4]

Race start

Hamilton got a good start and led from pole position. Bottas also started well and preserved the Mercedes one two. Vettel started well and was in fifth by the end of lap 1.^[7] Also on lap 1, Lance Stroll pushed Fernando Alonso off the track. Stroll would later receive a five second penalty for this, but Alonso would also receive a five second penalty for the same incident as he was deemed to have gained an advantage by going off the track.^[9] On lap 2, Verstappen pushed Raikkonen off the track when rejoining the track, and Vettel took fourth as a result. Verstappen would be given a five second penalty for this incident. By lap 3, Riccardo had reached 10th position from his starting grid position of 15th.^[7]

On lap 3, the safety car was deployed to allow marshals to clear up debris from the incident between Charles Leclerc and Kevin Magnussen on the pit straight.^[7] Magnussen had moved across the track to defend from Leclerc, with Leclerc moving to avoid Magnussen, and crashing into his rear.^[10] The incident gave Magnussen a puncture and Leclerc a broken front wing. Both would pit shortly to fix the damage that resulted from the incident. Magnussen's lap to return to the pits with his puncture created much of the debris that needed to be cleaned up during the safety car period.^[7]

Mid-race

The safety car period ended on lap 7. On lap 8, Vettel proceeded to attack Verstappen, however, an overtake attempt on the third placed Verstappen sent Vettel spinning, and resulted in him rejoining the race in 19th. Verstappen sustained some floor damage to his car as a result of this incident, and Vettel also took some damage to his sidepods. The stewards deemed this collision to be a racing incident, and as such, no penalties were handed out.^[7]

On Lap 9, Magnussen would retire his car from the damage it sustained in the collision with Leclerc. On lap 13, Ricciardo overtook Pierre Gasly for 6th, and a lap later, he would take fifth position from Grosjean. Raikkonen was the first of the frontrunners to pit, on lap 18, and swapped his supersofts for medium tires. He was followed by Verstappen on lap 22 pitting onto the softs, who was able to preserve third over Raikkonen despite serving his five second penalty.^[7]

Both Bottas and Ricciardo pitted on lap 23, both onto mediums, with Ricciardo able to overcut Raikkonen to take fourth position. A lap later Hamilton would also pit onto mediums, meaning at this point all the frontrunners had completed their first stops. On lap 27, Vettel, who had climbed to 10th position by this point, pit for soft tires. On lap 36, after overtaking a few cars, and a few pitstops by midfield drivers, Vettel would take 6th. On lap 39, Hulkenberg would retire his car to become the second DNF. He would be followed by Leclerc who retired his car by stopping on the side of the track. This brought out the Virtual Safety Car, and racing would resume in lap 42.^[7]

Finish

The top 5 would stay in their positions to the finish. Hamilton picked up his 71st career victory, and his ninth win of the season, having led every lap of the race. It also marked his 50th win at Mercedes. Bottas picked up his first podium finish in Suzuka with his second place result, and with Hamilton’s victory, combined for Mercedes’ 44th one-two result. Verstappen was close to Bottas for the last few laps of the race, but was unable to overtake, and took 3rd place. He picked up his third podium in three races at Suzuka. Vettel finished the race in 6th position, but was able to take the fastest lap of the race on the last lap. Sergio Perez finished in 7th to claim the “best of the rest” position for Force India.^[7]

This win moved Hamilton 67 points clear of Vettel in the Driver’s Championship Standings. Beating Vettel by 8 points in the next round in the United States would win Hamilton his fifth Driver’s World Championship. This race also left Perez, Magnussen, and Hulkenberg tied for the same number of points in the championship. All three were battling for the best of the rest position of 7th behind the 6 big team drivers. Perez held 7th after Suzuka thanks to his 3rd place finish in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.^[10]

Post race

In post race interviews, Vettel blamed his spin on Verstappen, stating that he had not been left “enough room”.^[11] Verstappen put the blame on Vettel, claiming that the Spoon curve, where the incident occurred, is not a spot to overtake. He claimed that Vettel “understeered into” him.^[12] Verstappen also expressed his disappointment with the five second penalty he incurred for his rejoining incident with Raikkonen, stating that he rejoined the track “in a safe way”^[13] and that he felt that Raikkonen should have waited for him to reenter the track. Lewis Hamilton would describe himself as “very, very happy” with his drive, also describing the weekend as “very strong” for the team.^[14]

Race classification

More information Pos., No. ...

Pos.	No.	Driver	Constructor	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	53	1:27:17.062	1	25
2	77	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	53	+12.919	2	18
3	33	Max Verstappen	Red Bull Racing-TAG Heuer	53	+14.295	3	15
4	3	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing-TAG Heuer	53	+19.495	15	12
5	7	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	53	+50.998	4	10
6	5	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	53	+1:09.873	8	8
7	11	Sergio Pérez	Force India-Mercedes	53	+1:19.379	9	6
8	8	Romain Grosjean	Haas-Ferrari	53	+1:27.198	5	4
9	31	Esteban Ocon	Force India-Mercedes	53	+1:28.055	11	2
10	55	Carlos Sainz Jr.	Renault	52	+1 lap	13	1
11	10	Pierre Gasly	Scuderia Toro Rosso-Honda	52	+1 lap	7
12	9	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber-Ferrari	52	+1 lap	20
13	28	Brendon Hartley	Scuderia Toro Rosso-Honda	52	+1 lap	6
14	14	Fernando Alonso	McLaren-Renault	52	+1 lap	18
15	2	Stoffel Vandoorne	McLaren-Renault	52	+1 lap	19
16	35	Sergey Sirotkin	Williams-Mercedes	52	+1 lap	17
17	18	Lance Stroll	Williams-Mercedes	52	+1 lap	14
Ret	16	Charles Leclerc	Sauber-Ferrari	38	Mechanical	10
Ret	27	Nico Hülkenberg	Renault	37	Engine	16
Ret	20	Kevin Magnussen	Haas-Ferrari	8	Collision damage	12
Source:[15]

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