Confused F1 drivers continued racing even after the chequered flag was waved at last weekend’s Japanese GP.
F1 marked its return to Japan earlier this month after a two-year gap on the calendar. On what was expected to be a great weekend full of racing action, a lot of controversies overshadowed the former.
The race itself got off to the worst possible start after Carlos Sainz’s car lost control and crashed under the very wet conditions of Suzuka. The FIA ended up angering the entire grid after they let a recovery crane into the track while the drivers were still out there. It was followed by the stewards showing the red flag after which the drivers resumed racing more than two hours later.
Out of the 53 scheduled laps, we saw only 28 laps of action. When the chequered flag was finally shown, drivers were not sure if the race was over. A select few drivers even continued racing after it was officially over including 2022 Champion Max Verstappen and his main rival Charles Leclerc.
The FIA’s inconsistency with rules and unclear laws were the reasons behind this mass confusion.
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Max Verstappen thought he had another lap of Japanese GP left
The outing in Suzuka went under way with a time constraint. According the sport’s rules the race should end at the end of the lap following the culmination of the time period. Verstappen was on lap 28 when he thought that he had another lap left, but that wasn’t so.
Behind Verstappen, Leclerc and Perez were fighting for the second spot. The former’s race engineer also mistakenly told him that another lap remained but quickly corrected himself by saying that the race was over. There was so much confusion that Verstappen did not know he had won the race until the end of his cool-down lap!
Two-time World Champion Fernando Alonso himself was not sure about what happened. The Alpine driver completed half a flying lap and thought his race was still on before reality struck.
“It was very chaotic for everyone,” the Spaniard said. “Even the last lap, we didn’t know if it was the last lap or not. So it was very difficult for everybody.”
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Verstappen crowned World Champion under bizarre circumstances
Another incident which angered fans in Suzuka was the points distribution. Just over 50% of the race had been completed, so the drivers and fans thought that full points won’t be awarded.
Just after Verstappen crossed the line to take P1, he and the entire Red Bull team thought that he was a point short of the World Title. However, Leclerc got a five-second time penalty just moments after he got out of his car, which meant Perez finished second.
This led to Verstappen being crowned as World Champion, but the Dutch driver wasn’t even sure he had won it when he was on the podium. Soon, the FIA explained why full points had been awarded to the top ten drivers which is something teams and drivers understood eventually.
