Piastri’s perfect week… and why controversial call was right; Ferrari star‘s podium gaffe: Japan Talking Pts

Red Bull Racing has won the 2023 constructors championship.

This news will not come as a surprise to you. Nor will you be shocked to know that Max Verstappen will almost certainly claim the drivers championship at the next round in Qatar, having fallen just three points short at the Japanese Grand Prix.

It’s the team’s sixth constructors title and its second on the bounce. Around a decade on from Red Bull Racing’s first title era, we’re in the thick of the team’s second golden age.

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But McLaren is getting closer — barely but undeniably. The team was actually pleasantly surprised that its race pace compared favourably relative to its one-lap pace, meaning the Sunday wasn’t quite the obliteration so many had expected.

The team also feels it’s on the right development track, giving it hope for next season.

Where do Mercedes, Ferrari and Aston Martin fit into the picture? It’s fair to say the result is mixed if you take Japan as the template.

PIASTRI GETS MAIDEN PODIUM

What a week it’s been for Oscar Piastri.

On Wednesday he was re-signed to the team on a bumper contract taking him to the end of 2026.

On Thursday he had some aspects of his ability likened to those of Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso.

On Saturday he qualified on the front row for a grand prix for the first time in his career, making him just the fifth Australian to do so.

On Sunday he took his first step onto the Formula 1 podium as the first rookie to finish inside the top three in more than six years.

Not bad for only 16 races.

Piastri started the season as the sport’s best credentialed and most highly anticipated rookie in years. It hasn’t taken him long to prove the substance behind those claims.

“It’s definitely been a pretty special week,” Piastri said. “You never forget your first podium.

“It’ll be a special day and I won’t forget it, and also ticking the first podium off the list is always a nice achievement to have.

“For now I’ll enjoy the trophy. I’ve been drowned by Lando in champagne, which is a nice problem to have.”

But almost immediately taking a moment to bask in the celebratory atmosphere of his first podium, Piastri switched back into what’s fast becoming known as Piastri mode.

“There’s still a lot to learn and try and improve on,” he said.

“Definitely a few things that, had I had this race again, I would’ve done a bit differently, but that’s all part of learning.

“It’s exciting to know we can finish on the podium even if I feel like there’s more to come.”

More to come — that’s the salient takeaway point after Piastri’s first podium.

He’s only just warming up.

McLAREN MAKES RIGHT CALL WITH TEAM ORDERS

Of course if you wanted to be picky on Piastri’s almost perfect day — and Oscar is evidently keen to — then he’s right to point out his race pace wasn’t as good as his qualifying speed, leaving him helpless in the fight for second.

Piastri had found himself ahead of Norris thanks to an earlier pit stop and virtual safety car, but before long the Briton was back on his gearbox and heavily insisting to the pit wall that he be allowed through.

Eventually the team relented. The order was swapped, and Norris finished the race 17 seconds up the road. It’s difficult to argue in that context that it wasn’t the right call.

“I think these high-deg races are probably the biggest thing I need to try and work on,” Piastri said. “I think it’s still quite fresh for me.

“The first stint felt like everyone was driving extremely slowly, and when I tried to push a bit more the tyres didn’t really let me go much faster — so a few things to work on there.

“I think the one-lap pace, especially the last few weekends, has been a good improvement from the start of the year, but definitely in these kinds of races the race pace is still an area to improve.”

Suzuka is always punishing on tyres, but this year’s race — warmer than usual thanks to its earlier calendar slot — was particularly rough. Pirelli’s F1 tyres are made to order, meaning every rookie starts with a significant experience gap.

“It’s not like you learn race pace and it’s a set of skills that then you deploy for every race,” team boss Andrea Stella said. “It’s a bit of a journey and it takes time, because every situation presents their own characteristics.

“I’m sure Oscar will have learnt things today, and I’m sure towards the end it was already better than he was in the second stint.

“It’s just a rookie element.”

It should also take nothing away from Piastri to say Norris is rapid driver and has been in fine form this weekend despite his qualifying defeat.

“Lando’s pace today was very good in absolute terms,” Stella said. “If anything, we have to look with Oscar at where we could’ve gained the 0.1 or 0.2 seconds of overall pace that he seemed to lack today compared to Lando.”

LECLERC LAMENTS LOST PODIUM — SORT OF

Spare a thought for Charles Leclerc, who finished a strong fourth on a reasonably good weekend for Ferrari but who thought there was so much more on offer when the chequered flag fell.

On lap 13 the Monegasque sped past a slowing Max Verstappen at Spoon Curve at the far end of the circuit.

The podium was up for grabs if he could just keep the McLaren drivers in his sights.

“I didn’t even follow what Max did because I saw him stopping at the [virtual] safety car or after the safety car,” Leclerc explained after the race. “I don’t know what happened there and I thought he wasn’t in the race anymore.”

It was only on the final lap of the race that he realised he was running fourth.

“I thought I was doing a podium until the last lap where I actually looked at the board and I was P4,” he said.

But despite having seen P4 on his pit board, Leclerc still appeared confused by the situation speaking to the assembled media after the race.

“[Verstappen] slowed down at one point no?” he asked reporters. “He basically stopped on the left and we all overtook him.”

It took one journalist to suggest that the stopped Red Bull Racing car had in fact been the retiring Sergio Pérez rather than the conquering Verstappen for the penny to drop.

“Oh right, okay!” he said. “That’s what it was. I thought Max was out of the race at that moment. It was just confusing for me.”

We’ll mark that one to the rigours of racing 53 laps of the punishing Suzuka Circuit. He’s paid to race, not to count, after all.

MERCEDES GETS ROWDY ON FRUSTRATING AFTERNOON

Mercedes had hoped that its usual upswing in race pace and its double set of hard tyres would’ve made it a podium contender in Japan. Instead it was mired in a fight with Ferrari and along way down on McLaren.

Perhaps it was that early realisation, or maybe it was just the general tension of racing at a track like Suzuka, but both Mercedes drivers appeared thoroughly worked up throughout the Japanese Grand Prix.

They battled fiercely wheel to wheel early in the race, George Russell trying to pass Lewis Hamilton, costing them both time.

In retrospect it was most costly for Russell who then switched to a one-stop strategy and could’ve done without taking life from his tyres.

Their roles were reversed after Hamilton’s second stop. The older Briton was clearly much faster, but the team let them battle for longer than necessary before enacting team orders.

It cost Hamilton a shot at overhauling Leclerc for third and put him at risk of a Sainz offensive from behind.

“We should have swapped around earlier and I should have got as far ahead as possible to keep the gap as big as it could get to the Ferraris,” Hamilton said. “I think if we had inverted, maybe George would have had a better time holding it behind, but because he was trying to fight me and damaging these tyres, it just I think it just made it more complicated.

“The fact is we’re not fighting each other in a team championship. As drivers it’s not important where we are.

“What’s important is that one of us finishes ahead of the Ferrari to keep the position, so today we really needed to work as a team.”

Hamilton was also frustrated to then be called back to give Russell DRS in a vain attempt to keep him ahead of Sainz, a strategy always unlikely to work given the massive tyre disparity.

“I don’t think that was a good idea at all,” he said. “When they suggested it me, I knew that they obviously thought of it from the last race, and it made no sense.

“Then [Sainz] got past him and he was right on my tail, so not ideal. It made it very, very hard for the last couple of laps.”

ALONSO THROWN TO THE LIONS

While there was plenty of aggro on the Mercedes radio, it didn’t come close to Fernando Alonso’s radio messages — but then nothing ever really does when the Spaniard is worked up.

Alonso had been one of the first of the top 10 to stop for fresh tyres, a move that won him some short-term speed but left him vulnerable to fresher rubber in the middle of the race, dropping him like a stone down the order.

“You’ve thrown me to the lions stopping that early, mate,” he fumed over team radio. “Unbelievable.”

He escalated his tone in the middle of the race, when he found himself bottled behind Esteban Ocon’s Alpine.

“He’s pulling away on the straight, so think of something!” he shouted.

Alonso said little should be made of his recently frustrated tone over team radio, using his well-worn defence that F1 takes his audio out of context.

But there’s no doubting the Aston Martin honeymoon has ended.

The first clear sign came after qualifying 10th, when he wheeled out an Alpine-era answer to explain how he felt on Saturday night.

“Even on difficult days we still managed to be in Q3 thanks to very good laps,” he said. “This type of qualifying will be unnoticed for many people, but I’m very proud.”

In other words: I’m fast but the car isn’t. Not that you can really argue.

Aston Martin still has one of the season’s biggest upsides, perhaps eclipsed only by McLaren’s giant leap forward, but the lost development momentum has left the team vulnerable to being passed by McLaren for fourth in the standings, with the gap now just 49 points.

“If it’s 49, then I definitely think so,” Norris said when asked if Aston Martin can be overhauled in the remaining six races. “I think our advantage at the minute comparing to almost every team bar a couple is we have two drivers who are up there fighting for those positions and fighting for those points.

“Not every team has that at the minute. I think that’s helping us. We can help one another, we can use one another, and I think that’s a good advantage we have over a lot of other teams at the minutes.”

A subtle dig at Lance Stroll in the sister Aston Martin car undoubtedly. But just as you can’t argue against Alonso’s performance, McLaren’s momentum — and Aston’s lack of it — isn’t up for debate.