Date of the race weekend moved for both sustainability as well as to mitigate rain chances Alpine brought upgrades to Japan Logan Sargeant in Albon’s repaired chassis from Melbourne Spare chassis won’t be ready until Miami Daniel Ricciardo’s woes continue → looking into using a different chassis before saying he’s “shit” Also calling the current run of form “a bit weird to comprehend” Vettel unretiring? → Lewis hails Seb as a good option for 2025 when he leaves Merc Seb and Toto have been talking??? Free Practice Logan dipped a wheel onto the grass at the Dunlop Curve and binned the car Remember: still no spare chassis Super Formula driver (and F2 race winner) Ayumu Iwasa made his F1 debut in FP1 Would end up P15 in the session, behind Stroll and Bottas FP2 would largely be washout → only 13 timed laps in the session Qualifying Alpine quali’d P15, P17; OCO, GAS RUS was investigated for a pitlane incident involving PIA → NFA TSU would make Q3 again → knocking out RIC this time TSU P10, RIC P11 Merc’s pace faded as the track heated up P3-P4 RUS, HAM in FP3 would end up P7-P9 HAM, RUS in Q3 Red Bull front-row lockout → PER only 0.07 behind VER Race Day After rain and subsequently cool track temps, race day brought track temps much hotter than expected L1 T3 crash involving ALB and RIC → Lengthy red flag period to repair the barriers RIC appeared to just move up the circuit and into ALB STILL NO SPARE WILLIAMS CHASSIS The start was re-racked and VER sailed off into the distance Mercedes would attempt a one-stop after the restart and run long on hards It didn’t work at all with both cars making an additional stops for hards and then mediums ZHO would retire on L13 with an unspecified issue STR and ALO would pit on L14 to swap softs for mediums It’s here where STR would be investigated for unsafe release into a Haas With 10 to go, SAR locked up into Degner 2 and brought out local yellows RUS would launch a late-race attack on PIA and nab P7 PIA felt like he’d been forced off at the chicane Red Bull 1-2 → VER-PER Sainz would round out the podium TSU would nab the final point
