The Formula 1 Japanese Grand Prix 2019’s Super Sunday ended with Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas winning the race and Mercedes also clinching the Constructors title thanks to the 41 points gained in Japan. 

The Japan result also means that Mercedes clinch the Drivers’ championship too, because as it stands, Bottas is the only driver who has a mathematical chance of catching the championship leader and his team-mate, Lewis Hamilton.

The race, which was played out in front of an 89,000 strong crowd in the wake of the Typhoon Hagibis, was a surprising one, after what we had seen this morning in terms of Ferrari’s dominance in qualifying with Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc taking pole and second spot respectively. The two Mercedes cars occupied the second row.

However, Ferrari have only themselves to blame for failing to convert a strong qualifying performance into a dominant race performance, due to errors. 

At the very start, Vettel’s hesitant getaway from pole resulted in him losing the lead in the first few metres to Bottas. The Finn, who had begun in third, never relinquished the lead.

As well, for Leclerc, after a poor getaway off the front row, he ran wide into Max Verstappen of Red Bull on the outside of turn two. This sent Verstappen’s car into a spin and eventually to Verstappen’s retirement from the race. 

While Leclerc had finished the race in sixth place after a great climb up the pecking order from last place in the fourth lap, the front wing of his car had been damaged, and on lap two, the resulting flying debris broke off and hit Hamilton’s Mercedes. 

Yet, Ferrari did not call Leclerc in to pit till an additional lap later. A 15-second time penalty as a result of the above incident saw him drop a place to seventh.

Moving on from Japan, Hamilton will now get his first chance to wrap up the Drivers Championship at the next race in Mexico City on 29 October. This is a happy hunting ground for him, as it is a venue where he has clinched the title the last two times.

For the Drivers Championship, the top three are clear, with Mercedes having just been crowned champions and Ferrari and Red Bull in second and third place respectively.