Japanese Grand Prix: Race Recap

Hulkenberg took the start from P12 on Pirelli P Zero Red Soft tires, with Kevin Magnussen lining up in P18 on Yellow medium tires – both gaining positions through a hectic opening complex. An accident between RB’s Daniel Ricciardo and Williams’ Alex Albon caused the race to be suspended for 30 minutes while the cars were retrieved and the barriers repaired.

A standing restart took place on lap 3, with Hulkenberg P10, and Magnussen P16, but while Magnussen gained a spot, it came at the expense of his teammate, who dropped down the order to P17.

Hulkenberg came in on lap 5 for White hard tires before pitting again on lap 34 for the same compound, running a two-stop strategy that brought the German racer to the brink of points in P11 at the checkered flag. Magnussen adopted a one-stop approach, coming in on lap 22 - having run just inside the top 10. The Dane swapped out his medium tires for hards, Magnussen eventually relinquishing a couple of spots to rivals on fresher rubber to finish the race in P13.

Up front Max Verstappen controlled the race to lead teammate Sergio Perez for a Red Bull Racing one-two finish, with Scuderia Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz third.

Nico Hulkenberg: 

“I don’t think we could’ve got any higher than P10 probably, and Tsunoda was 50 seconds behind Hamilton, so I didn’t have that kind of pace. I had one good start and one really bad start – the car went into anti-stall – so we need to look into what happened and why it did that. After that, I got my head down as I think the pace was pretty good for the midfield. I did a long stint on the hard at first, and a ‘splash and dash’ on the second set so that I could really show some pace. I take our race pace as a positive, it was better than what I expected before the race so that’s a relief and promising for China and going forwards.”

 

Kevin Magnussen:

“At one point I was running inside the top 10 – I didn’t know what those around me were doing so I wasn’t sure if it was realistic or not – but I was trying. With the tires we had, the red flag effectively helped a few people and they were able to do a one stop from hard to hard, where I had to do two stops from medium to hard, so that was tough. I had to pit quite early for the second stint on the hard tires, so it was a bit tricky. We’re there or thereabouts in the races again, so that’s encouraging and gives some hope for coming races that we can be in the hunt for points.”

 

Ayao Komatsu, Team Principal:

“There are mixed feelings because in the end, we missed out being in the top 10 by five seconds with Nico which is very frustrating. On the positive side, our race pace today was much better than what we saw earlier in the weekend, so the changes the team made after FP3 and before qualifying worked well. We just needed to get there sooner this weekend as we started off with the wrong car balance and FP2 was wet – it put us on the backfoot – so that’s something we as a team need to improve. Today with Nico, the first start was fine but on the second start he didn’t do the procedure correctly so he went into anti-stall and lost positions. From there to recover to almost scoring points was very encouraging, so that’s the positive we’re going to take.”

 

Today's Data:

Event: Japanese Grand Prix – Sunday April 7
Location: Suzuka International Circuit, Suzuka
Layout: 5.807-kilometer (3.608-mile), 18-turn circuit
Weather: Sunny
Air Temps: 20 degrees Celsius (68 degrees Fahrenheit)
Track Temps: 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit)
Race Winner: Max Verstappen of Red Bull Racing
Team Result: Nico Hulkenberg – Started 12^th / Finished 11^th (Running – 52/53 laps)
Kevin Magnussen – Started 18^th / Finished 13^th (Running – 52/53 laps)