© Getty ImagesPreviously At The Japanese Grand PrixThe Japanese Grand Prix is an old-school race where you find out just how good your car really is, and we’ve had some great days at Suzuka…
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The F1 calendar travels through a globalised world – but Japan is a race apart, it doesn’t look or feel like anywhere else. It’s a special place to go racing with a long motorsport heritage and a strong attachment to Formula One. The fans that throng Suzuka are incredibly passionate about the sport, albeit with an unusual level of restraint. We love the banners, we love the intricately modelled hats, we love that the crowd stays to watch packdown and applauds each freight box being closed. This isn’t typical behaviour, but it’s an atmosphere that we relish.
We have some truly golden memories of the Japanese Grand Prix and particularly of the Suzuka Circuit, designed originally as a test track for Honda. The Beast in the East is a narrow, rollercoaster of a circuit, one of the select few with corners that boast individual character: The Esses, Dunlop, Degner, Spoon, 130R. It’s the sort of high-speed, high downforce venue that our cars are built for. We’ve had five victories here, nine other podiums, six poles, four fastest laps. We’ve twice clinched Drivers Championships here and celebrated those in a manner that will be familiar to past generations of F1 teams.
There’s a predisposition to think of Suzuka as the home of the Japanese Grand Prix but other circuits are available. When F1 first went to Japan in the 1970s, it was the Fuji Circuit that hosted those races, and we went back to the foothills of the world’s most photographed stratovolcano for races in 2007 and 2008. There’s a tendency to fast-forward to 2009 in the Red Bull Racing story, but races like the 2007 Japanese Grand Prix demonstrate the team didn’t arrive full-fledged with the RB5. Two years earlier, the RB3 laid the groundwork for what would follow, and at Fuji, it was at its most competitive.
Sadly, it’s a what-might-have-been race. Mark Webber had just about the worse race imaginable: sick all weekend with food poisoning, he ploughed on regardless, even after throwing up in his helmet during the race – Aussie Grit is a good nickname. On a horrendously wet day, with the first 19 laps ran behind the Safety Car, Mark made his way up to second before the Safety Car, hastily refuelled, appeared again after Fernando Alonso crashed. Lewis Hamilton led – but with a World Championship to win and his closest rival out, he wasn’t going to be taking any chances. Mark definitely fancied his chances were the race to restart – until young Toro Rosso hot-shot Sebastian Vettel rammed him and took them both out. DC gave us fourth place but it was a pretty miserable garage at pack-down… and then there was an earthquake.
2009 was our training wheels season as a genuine Championship contender. The RB5 wasn’t the fastest car at the start of the season – but it was the fastest car that didn’t have a double diffuser. When that controversial addition was shoehorned into a rear end that hadn’t been designed for it, our competitive position became much stronger, and by mid-season RB5 was probably the class of the field – certainly on downforce-dominated high-speed circuits like Silverstone and Suzuka.
The weekend in Japan didn’t get off to the best of starts with a very wet Friday, followed by Mark crashing so heavily at Degner on Saturday morning, that he had to sit-out the afternoon while the car was rebuilt. Seb, however, was hooked up enough to be fastest in each session of Qualifying. From pole position he led every lap of the race – though Mark beat him to fastest lap by 0.002s.
2009 - RB5 Shows It Colours© Getty Images
F1 (until next year) tends to head to Japan during typhoon season and, while that’s not yet led to race cancellation, we have had a few Saturdays washed out, requiring everyone to troop into the track at dawn on Sunday to prepare for an early Qualifying session. 2010 was one such occasion. We spent Saturday afternoon waiting in vain for a weather window that never arrived. It’s always a frustrating time, because with the cars ready to go, no-one can do anything other than wait… though the Suzuka paddock is on a hill, which meant the teams were soon constructing little boats to sail in the stream running down the pit-lane – that got quite competitive.
Having called it off (because it was getting dark), we came back on Sunday morning to try again. Mark was leading the Championship, Seb was fourth – but it was Seb that took the pole ahead of his team-mate by about seven-hundredths of a second. They weren’t separated by much more than that at the flag, and with three races to go, Mark still held the Championship lead but Seb was moving up fast…
2010 - Busy Sunday© Getty Images
2011 is an odd one to celebrate but it’s one that lingers in the memory simply because third place gave Seb his second Drivers’ title. Things had started well, with Sebastian taking pole by nine-thousandths of a second from Jenson Button. He made a decent start to hold the lead – just – but Suzuka’s mix of high-speed corners and abrasive tarmac made for a race of high-degradation and multiple pit-stops. Seb lost out in those exchanges to both Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso.
Closing fast in the final stages, he was reminded by race engineer Guillaume Rocquelin that third would do just fine. Rocky’s tone didn’t really suggest the counter-argument would be welcome, Seb held his position, took the flag line-astern with Button and Alonso, and became a two-time World Champion. That evening there was karaoke at the Log Cabin and a couple of drinks, which left Seb looking a little green at an engagement in Yokohama the following day… and the team convinced he drives a lot better than he sings.
2011 - Victory In Defeat© Getty Images
While the Japanese Grand Prix hasn’t moved around much in terms of the date on which the race is held, it has got earlier in the racing calendar, by virtue of the seasons getting longer and more races being added after it. In 2012 there were five race to follow Japan – and plenty of points to play for – but already it felt like the Drivers’ Championship was coming down to a battle between Seb and Fernando Alonso. Suzuka was a track that suited the RB8, however, and we locked-out the front row with Seb on pole. He got away well but behind him chaos reigned. Mark was hit by Romain Grosjean and had to pit with a broken front wing, while Grosjean’s team-mate Kimi Räikkönen took out Alonso. Mark never got back into the fight and had a few impolitic things to say about Romain but Seb got through the Safety Car period, restarted his race and, with his two likely rivals not in contention, won by 20 seconds, cutting Alonso’s lead to just four points…
2012 - Battered© Getty Images
We’ve had too many days at Suzuka with torrential rain, typhoon warnings and high winds, that the abiding image tends to be of a circuit shrouded in mist, with everyone walking about in the paddock soaking wet and leaning into a driving gale – but when the sun comes out, it’s absolutely lovely. 2013 was one of those years. We had another 1-2 in Qualifying with Mark taking his only Suzuka pole position, but the order was reversed at the chequered flag. Neither driver made a good start and dropped behind Grosjean and Hamilton.
With Grosjean proving difficult to pass, the team split strategies, Mark going onto a three-stop. It worked out a little better for Seb, who caught and passed Grosjean at half-distance. Seb then, however, had to contend with Mark – who would be gaining on fresher tyres in the final few laps. Mark, however, struggled to pass Grosjean and while he eventually made it through, it was a little too late to catch Seb, who won his fourth Japanese Grand Prix in five seasons – and a first starting somewhere other than pole.
2013 - Serene© Getty Images
Suzuka is a track for great championship deciders – but in the modern era, with so many races to follow, it’s tough for modern drivers to emulate their forebears – but Max managed it last year… though nobody seemed entirely certain at the time. He started on pole, which meant he was the only driver who could see anything at a start which took place in torrential rain. The chaos behind was predictable, the red flag inevitable, and we hunkered in to wait out the storm. We got a restart with 45 minutes remaining on the clock, enough for 26 more laps.
Max maintained his lead throughout the shortened race but the real battle was behind him between Checo and Charles Leclerc. Leclerc just held on to the flag, but went off to do it at the final corner, picking up a 5s penalty to give us a one-two finish. That was just enough to give Max the title… though there was considerable confusion. The race hadn’t reached 75% per cent distance, so the assumption was half-points would be awarded. However, within the labyrinthine Sporting Regulations of F1, it says that a race ended by the chequered, rather than red, flag gets full points. And so, our most recent Suzuka memory is as wonderful was it is damp. Roll on 2023.
2022 - Max's Moment© Getty Images
