Rate the race: Japanese Grand Prix

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A pot-boiler of a result at Suzuka which keeps both championship battles going.

Rate the Japanese Grand Prix out of ten and leave a comment below.

Rate the 2009 Japanese Grand Prix out of 10

  • 10 - Perfect (1%)
  • 9 - Fantastic (2%)
  • 8 - Great (9%)
  • 7 - Good (24%)
  • 6 - Not bad (20%)
  • 5 - A bit dull (18%)
  • 4 - Often tedious (7%)
  • 3 - Boring (14%)
  • 2 - Rubbish (3%)
  • 1 - Terrible (2%)

Total Voters: 1,732

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Japanese Grand Prix

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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78 comments on “Rate the race: Japanese Grand Prix”

  1. Terrible race, partly due to Star Sports inserting ad breaks during each and every exciting moment in the race.

    1. @cyanide, so basically, you had two ad breaks?

      1. No, but we had ad breaks were during all the exciting moments and more.

        1. It’s frustrating we had break when Sutil was trying to pass Hekki,when Fishi & Hekki was battling when they came out of the pit & when Trulli pass Hamilton on his second pitstop.

          What have we seen????????/

    2. Good race happy for toyota and trulli another good race for kimi and ham
      Button lucky as always
      1ºsutil and kov spun out then Raikkonen and Heidfeld got out of the pits between him and kubica the champ is evolving very slowly since mid season
      vettel had a few probs on the pits but nothing big jenson is praticly World Champ

      1. Yeah its a shame. Jenson should have wrapped up the title ages ago and we could all think about next year.

        Rubens needed to close up on Button. It hasn’t happened. Button has won the title realistically. With Brawn reliability and his smooth (dull) driving style he won’t get any DNF’s

    3. Yeah… I know, it doesn’t help that you have that idiot Slater commentating. Try and get Supersport, they use BBC’s feed…

    4. Tell me about it. It’s annoying enough they put put ads right at the most inopportune times, but that these are ads of their own shows.

      Don’t even get me started on Steve Slater!

  2. I voted Good.

    Not a great race, still problems with overtaking. Good at the end although still no overtaking. It would be a 5 or 6 but for Vettel and Hamilton on the podium :D

    1. I voted a 4 — Often Tedious. Sure, this is almost a perfect set-up for the next two races, but the race itself, esp. compared to the qualifying yesterday — yawn.

  3. Man, Jenson salvages a few points again!

  4. thought it was a good race. had no video feed so followed with live score and twitter. guess i read the suzuka gp! thanks for the tweets

  5. Very less overtaking, so a bit dull. They must get rid of KERS.
    Rubens stuck behind Kimi, Sutil behind Heikki, etc……….

  6. TBH I actually dozed off after the first round of pitstops. Not much going on midrace, I think it only picked up during the second round of stops.

    Best part of today: the titles aren’t decided yet!

  7. i liked it. although there wasn’t much passing, the pace and surprises made it more entertaining. vettel had the race by the throat, and a nice result for toyota at home should brighten their situation. brawn and button let the titles slip, but the opposition is simply running out of races.

    did uk viewers notice a difference in picture quality?

  8. Man a very boring race indeed. Not much more exciting than Singabore.

    Good drives from Vettel, Trulli, Button and Kimi.

    Kovalainen is a joke. How come he is so slow in the 1st stints of all races?

    1. I know Kovy is outrageous. How can he be so slow? And what was he thinking with Sutil. He didn’t need to do that

  9. An OK race, as usual we didn’t see much overtaking (though there was a great move at the 1st turn by Liuzzi), but it was fairly absorbing nonetheless.

  10. I believe Webber robbed his team-mate of a Grand Chelem by posting the fastest lap on the penultimate lap. The first since Schumacher, Hungary 2004.

    Rubens looks like a beaten man in his post race interview, but it looks like Rosberg’s penalty is going to decide the championship =/

    1. What is that? Pole, fastest lap and win? If it is that then there were others who did it since 2004.

      1. And leading start-to-finish

  11. Kovalainen overtaking Fisico was pretty damn cool.

    1. u mean just after the pit stop. It was nothing but a joke.Both were terrible after coming out of the pits. Indeed a very boring race

  12. Rubens loses one place from the grid, Jenson gains two from a more difficult position. Fantastic laps from Jens when it mattered, again!

    Interesting comments from Jens regarding Rosberg, let’s see what happens there.

    1. the reaso he made up places was because the cars kovi and fisco tangled, not because of his laps

      1. Yeah Button got the point from Kovi. What the hell was Kovi thinking! Stupid move from him

      2. What race were you watching ? Can’t have been 2009 Japanese GP. Kovaleinen and SUTIL collided and spun when Sutil made a pass. Button, travelling sensibly behind the pair of them, just swept past and you could see his grin through his helmet.

        Kovaleinen later partially repaired yet more damage to his poor record by passing Fisicella as they both left the pits,

      3. sorry not fisco, i meant sutil, realised that after submiting comment!

      4. All very valid points people, however don’t forget Jenson made a bad start and lost two places and had to overtake (on the track, something Vettel has yet to do, won from Pole everytime) Fisichella and Kubica. Jenson then had to put an awesome middle sector together which allowed him to come out right behind his teammate who had opened a gap while Jenson was stuck behind other slower cars.

        Don’t forget also that Jenson closed down Rubens (at over half a second a lap) while Rubens was also in clear air.

        Jenson drove yet another storming race from a poor qualifying position to keep his championship alive. I just wish he’d sort out qualifying, and shut the nae sayers up! His race’s have always been champion quality drives.

  13. Awesome race for S.Vettel!!!

  14. Had some high points – Sutil and Kovalainen, Kovalainen and Fisichella. You have to give respect to Vettel’s performance it was utterly peerless. And it was much the better for being a race at a proper track. 6/10.

    1. yeah, it got a not bad.
      I considered a 5 due to having to wake at 5 but still 6 it is.

    2. To be honest this one disappointed compared exclusively to Singapore. More expected from this classic circuit of course.

      Vettel, perfect drive, absolutely brilliant all the way, all the weekend.
      Trulli very surprisingly on it – all too rare though, did well to get ahead of Hamilton compounded by whatever that was when Lewis was exiting the pits.
      The Brawns are clearly playing it safe. Ross Brawn feigning disappointment, I think they’re just collecting the safe points with a strategy to suit.

      Getting up for the race and quali was nice again, gives it that special feeling that has been lost with them moving the schedules around.

      Not Bad…

  15. You know, I’ve always figured they should go back to the 2005 rules… there was quite a bit of overtaking that year.

    1. I’m all for the return of V10’s! :D

  16. Where is the “Not worth getting out of bed” – option?

    Terible race, something clearly went wrong with the new regs if they can’t race properly at Suzuka. The last thing F1 needs right now is “stability” with the rules.

    1. I really would like to see how these cars would race if they banned the big diffusers.

    2. name a year where there was masses of overtaking at Suzuka…ever?
      Silly comment knowing there is really only 2 big braking zones/overtaking areas on the track.

        1. I think maybe overtaking was easier that year, maybe drivers were more brave but a mad qualifying meant that the good drivers with good cars were at the back so they had all the potential to storm the field and more overtakes. However, I was expecting more from this years race

  17. Boring

    I was really looking forward to this race but I’m now regretting getting up at 5 a.m. as this was no better than Valencia or Singapore.

    Even the Safety Car couldn’t rescue this race, hardly any overtaking after the first lap and few drivers even able to get within a second of the car in front for most of the race.

    If it hadn’t been for the live blog I’d probably have fallen asleep.

  18. I said it was good, wish there had been more overtaking. I don’t understand the Kovy bashing with Sutil; both made mistakes and we still want drivers to overtake and they won’t try if we and the stewards keep slapping them down and it wasn’t that serious.
    Cars are closer performance but can’t overtake and maybe as no car is completely superior it stops a charge through the field like we used to see from Ferrari and Mclaren and also would like to see more attempts from the drivers but it is very difficult.

    1. Both of them could have avoided the crash but in the final reckoning I think you have to blame Kovalainen. Not least because he was daft enough to leave the door open in the first place.

      1. I’d say that Kovalainen caused the crash but that he should never get a penalty for it as it was a legitimate racing move.

        He had a chance of regaining his position and didn’t deliberately crash into Sutil.

        All in all, a racing incident.

      2. Actually now you have said that it makes sense. He was a bit asleep at first then lost his head and as you say it could have been avoided, I just prefer to avoid steward punishments for racing incidents when they don’t seem too bad.

        1. I’m glad it wasn’t investigated – drivers of today need to learn what racing incident means and let the duels be determined on track, not in stewards room.

  19. To anyone who is unfortunate enough to watch F1 on Star Sports, seriously take Hammad’s advice. With Anthony Davidson doing the commentary on practice days (sessions you won’t even see on Star Sports) and the excellent *advert free* coverage of the whole weekend, BBC commentary interspersed with chats from the really nice guys in South Africa I wonder why anyone even considers Star Sports retarded advert driven coverage.

  20. Grace Lovvorn
    4th October 2009, 8:28

    A “not bad” race, showing that Vettel had a near flawless performance today, even if it was a little too repetitive. I think we can all agree that he has natural talent, whether we like him or not. All I’m questioning are the reliability of Vettel and Webber’s cars…The season isn’t over yet! They’re being way too harsh on the engines. Also, I expected more from the Brawns, just so they could secure the constructors title, and maybe even the drivers, although that would have been impossible with Vettel’s win. Good to see Trulli on the podium, because I’ve been having this gut feeling that he’s going to retire after this season…I guess not. And did Kovi try to show that he actually existed? Yep! I believe he needed to get the title of “Most Likely to Run Someone Off the Track for No Apparent Reason.”
    Also, I have to give props to Alguersuari. Leave it to a little teenager to bring out the good old safety car! I was moaning and groaning about it, because it was a the last of the race, but at least it broke the monotony, right?

    Well, can’t wait for Brazil. Hopefully it will be exciting. Maybe not like last year’s (which starred a 30 second champion, the real champion, and Timo Glock), but it’ll definitely be something to look forward to. And don’t forget Abu Dhabi…

  21. 4/10 for me. Often nothing important to watch. Not many attempts to pass. Those that did work, was missed by Starsports (the only coverage of F1 in my area via our cable tv) such as how Sutil fall behind Rosberg again, and how did Kubica got pass Heidfeld. Starsports was quite poor today. Had to watch replays of Button on Kubica and even the Trulli pit stop.

    Vettel almost having the Grand Slam was the highlight. Was hoping he tried for a FLAP on the last lap just to pip Webber.

  22. ……went for not bad.

    what a drive by vettel those first 2\3 laps were top top quality.

  23. I must have missed something because I thought Kimi had the fastest lap until Webber beat it?

    I thought the race was good, there may not have been much overtaking but there was plenty of tension. And actual action involving Kovalainen, which is a rarity to say the least.

    Felt bad for the Toro Rossos after showing such promise earlier in the weekend to end up with two DNFs. I still think it’s great that a team is giving the opportunity to two youngsters to get F1 experience though. Hopefully next year they might be able to get some decent results.

    1. Webber set the fastest lap after the safety car had gone in.

      1. Sorry I should have worded that properly – I knew that Webber set the fastest lap, what I don’t understand is that people are saying he denied Vettel the grand slam by doing so – I don’t remember Vettel setting a fastest lap before then.

        1. Vettel’s fastest lap was 3 thousands of a second slower than Webber’s lap at the end of the race. It’s not important when Vettel set his lap…he would have had the fastest lap if Webber wouldn’t drive that lap that fast.

    2. Keeping the wheels on the tarmac and generally pointing in the right direction would be good…..notably for everybody elses health !

      Somebody with a bit of experience might even quietly point out to these lads that not all the best circuits were designed in the 21st century by a bloke called Tilke and with nice two kilometre wide run-off areas carefully laid with billiard table tarmac and goose-down pillows instead of them nasty ‘orrible ‘ard tyrewalls.

      Gee…it’s really tough being a boypracer these days !

  24. there was one or two passing moves after the first corner, and that was it

    it was the worst race of the season in terms of excitment. i brought my girlfriend over to watch this race to try get her into f1, very unimpressed!

    1. Very boring race indeed! Not the best race to recommend to any newcomer, certainly not to girlfriends! ;) Girlfriends are very moody, they might just think we men ,are as boring as F1 races & ditch us!

      1. Trust me, you men can be just as difficult to get into F1. Or maybe we have something wrong with us to be addicted to the sport :P Harv’s I would recommend waiting until a wet weather race and make her watch that, almost guarantees excitement.

        1. Brazil’s his only chance! Because it ain’t gonna rain at Abu Dubhai :D maybe you might get a sand storm or something. Seriously if this years race is anywhere near as good as last year’s, I bet she’ll love it.

          1. Brazil is great track, though it broke my heart last year:( The fans there are always great to watch, I think it transfers some of the passion back to us at home

          2. well after that bizzare qualifying sesion i thought it was going to be good! dont know how i got that one so wrong!

            suzuka is an awsome track, pitty it couldnt hold a good race!

  25. boooooooooooooriiiiiiiiiiiiiing

  26. It seems like there was considerably more overtaking at Fuji last year and in the rain the year before.
    Unfortunate, as this is such a great track. For my money, this race would be exciting if all they showed us was onboards, from the low front wing camera… The track itself is that beautiful

  27. Driver’s need a greater incentive to overtake, are you going to risk everything for the sake of one additional point? Probably not

  28. I voted 6/10 – there were some overtakings and just seeing the drivers tackle this great track was joy to watch.

  29. 5/10. As dull as the layout for the Fuji Speedway is in comparison, it seems to produce good F1 races. Maybe next years race at Suzuka will be good.

  30. A Bit Dull… Very strong drive from Vettel. reminded of Schumey days where on his best day the opposition did not have any answers. Still find it very hard to see the tittle race going down to last race. Unless the Brawn pair put up another poor show. Not sure how Ross Brawn let this happen under his nose. I mean they should have wrapped up both the titles before Monza given the start they had.

  31. StrFerrari4Ever
    4th October 2009, 17:43

    I voted great on the back of Vettel’s performance he was pushing hard and that was awesome to witness. Trulli great drive to get 2nd and Lewis a solid 3rd , Raikkonen proving again that his still one of the best and almost getting the fastest lap.

    Overtaking wasn’t a feature of this race which was disappointing but hey next is Sao Paolo which provides exciting racing so we can be optimistic.

    Toro Rosso well I was gutted with their performance after showing podium challenging pace but shows the current inexperience with their drivers but they will learn a lot from this weekend and hopefully be stronger in Brazil.

  32. Boring, boring, boring……………..sigh.
    Fortunately on the west coast I didn’t have to get up at 5AM this time.

  33. i think boring, because nothing happened. Q-perfect

  34. It wasnt THAT boring like Singapore was. And got quite interesting at the end; im quite satisfied. Good race in my opinion.

  35. I think ‘not worth waking up for’ summed that grand prix up. So 2/10 from me.

    1. However, 10/10 for the British Touring Car and support races from this weekend. Some excellent all-round action with lots of overtaking and drama, with a handful of scrapes and crashes thrown in.

  36. Well, can I say how nice it was to be able to actually watch an F1 race on a lazy sunday afternoon. Pity it was as dull as anything, and I dozed off for about 10 laps. That doesn’t even happen when I am watching in the wee sma’s !

  37. how about if you overtake a driver in the points you get an extra point? probably has a flaw but there isnt a huge incentive to overtake unless you are Kubica yesterday or Kovalinen fighting for his career.

    Or maybe a secondary column which includes overtakes and in the event of drivers being on equal points gives you that position.

    Anyway, dullish race on the best track. And thats a bit worrrying.

  38. I am still sceptical about how far the 2009 rule changes have gone towards making overtaking opportunities more frequent. Sometimes it is too easy for the fans, and often the drivers, to blame the tight confines of a circuit like Hungary or Barcelona on not producing the chances to pass other cars.
    Then we have Spa, Monza, and now Suzuka. Three classic, legendary tracks where passing has atleast, been possible in the past.
    The 2005 race at Suzuka stands out for many fans as the perfect Formula One race. Back then the cars had V10 powerplants, with the traditional look instead of the snow plough front wings and tight rear ends. We had everything in place, according to the 2009 regulations, that made overtaking extremely unlikely, yet we witnessed one of the best races in decades.
    Fast forward five years. The momentus battle between Schumacher and Hakkinen, a true head to head fight for the title. Hakkinen, after spinning out of the lead, charges off after Schumacher and passes him on the Kemmel straight at Spa. Heartstopping, pulsating stuff.
    I expected the same things in 2009, and have yet, not seen them. For all the hype, and talk of saving money, and double difusers and manufacturers walking out, that ‘edge of the seat’ moment has been missing.
    Formula One is based upon those moments. The prospect of Alonso-Massa, Hamilton-Raikkonen, going at it in 2010 is promising. F1 is always promising a good show, its time it delivered!

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