Ferrari produced the fastest pit stop of the Japanese Grand Prix which helped Kimi Raikkonen take fourth place from Valtteri Bottas.
Raikkonen was in and out of the pits in 22.5 seconds – a turnaround so quick only Mercedes got within half a second of it. Bottas lost around a second compared to that on each of his two visits to the pits.
Two stops were the order of the day for all the drivers who didn’t hit some sort of trouble. Most ended the race on the hard tyres, though Max Verstappen eked out 23 laps on the medium rubber to hold on to his points finish.
Teams faced the mixed challenge of having little running on Friday, coping with higher than usual minimum tyre pressures, and seeing the hottest track temperatures of the weekend during the race – 42C.
Pirelli also reported an unspecified number of cuts to the tyres after Carlos Sainz Jnr left debris on the track when he hit the pit entry bollard, though none of those developed into punctures.
2015 Japanese Grand Prix tyre strategies
The tyre strategies for each driver:
Stint 1 | Stint 2 | Stint 3 | Stint 4 | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Lewis Hamilton | Medium (16) | Medium (15) | Hard (22) | |
Nico Rosberg | Medium (15) | Hard (14) | Hard (24) | |
Sebastian Vettel | Medium (13) | Hard (17) | Hard (23) | |
Kimi Raikkonen | Medium (14) | Hard (14) | Hard (25) | |
Valtteri Bottas | Medium (11) | Medium (18) | Hard (24) | |
Nico Hulkenberg | Medium (10) | Hard (21) | Hard (22) | |
Romain Grosjean | Medium (11) | Medium (22) | Hard (20) | |
Pastor Maldonado | Medium (12) | Medium (24) | Hard (17) | |
Max Verstappen | Medium (9) | Hard (21) | Medium (23) | |
Carlos Sainz Jnr | Medium (14) | Hard (13) | Hard (25) | |
Fernando Alonso | Medium (9) | Medium (19) | Hard (24) | |
Sergio Perez | Medium (1) | Hard (17) | Hard (18) | Hard (16) |
Daniil Kvyat | Medium (8) | Hard (12) | Medium (14) | Hard (18) |
Marcus Ericsson | Medium (13) | Medium (13) | Hard (26) | |
Daniel Ricciardo | Medium (1) | Hard (23) | Hard (28) | |
Jenson Button | Hard (10) | Medium (17) | Medium (25) | |
Felipe Massa | Medium (1) | Hard (15) | Medium (18) | Medium (17) |
Alexander Rossi | Medium (22) | Hard (11) | Medium (18) | |
Will Stevens | Medium (21) | Hard (11) | Medium (10) | Medium (8) |
Felipe Nasr | Medium (10) | Hard (20) | Medium (19) |
2015 Japanese Grand Prix pit stop times
How long each driver’s pit stops took:
Driver | Team | Pit stop time | Gap | On lap | |
1 | Kimi Raikkonen | Ferrari | 22.584 | 28 | |
2 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 22.750 | 0.166 | 16 |
3 | Sebastian Vettel | Ferrari | 23.074 | 0.490 | 13 |
4 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes | 23.078 | 0.494 | 15 |
5 | Sebastian Vettel | Ferrari | 23.130 | 0.546 | 30 |
6 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 23.165 | 0.581 | 31 |
7 | Daniil Kvyat | Red Bull | 23.183 | 0.599 | 20 |
8 | Daniel Ricciardo | Red Bull | 23.225 | 0.641 | 24 |
9 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes | 23.241 | 0.657 | 29 |
10 | Pastor Maldonado | Lotus | 23.249 | 0.665 | 36 |
11 | Daniil Kvyat | Red Bull | 23.316 | 0.732 | 8 |
12 | Jenson Button | McLaren | 23.343 | 0.759 | 10 |
13 | Daniil Kvyat | Red Bull | 23.381 | 0.797 | 34 |
14 | Marcus Ericsson | Sauber | 23.418 | 0.834 | 13 |
15 | Marcus Ericsson | Sauber | 23.441 | 0.857 | 26 |
16 | Nico Hulkenberg | Force India | 23.491 | 0.907 | 31 |
17 | Valtteri Bottas | Williams | 23.542 | 0.958 | 11 |
18 | Valtteri Bottas | Williams | 23.588 | 1.004 | 29 |
19 | Fernando Alonso | McLaren | 23.640 | 1.056 | 9 |
20 | Will Stevens | Manor | 23.647 | 1.063 | 32 |
21 | Carlos Sainz Jnr | Toro Rosso | 23.701 | 1.117 | 14 |
22 | Kimi Raikkonen | Ferrari | 23.714 | 1.130 | 14 |
23 | Nico Hulkenberg | Force India | 23.750 | 1.166 | 10 |
24 | Fernando Alonso | McLaren | 23.767 | 1.183 | 28 |
25 | Romain Grosjean | Lotus | 23.793 | 1.209 | 11 |
26 | Jenson Button | McLaren | 23.801 | 1.217 | 27 |
27 | Max Verstappen | Toro Rosso | 23.977 | 1.393 | 30 |
28 | Felipe Nasr | Sauber | 24.116 | 1.532 | 30 |
29 | Sergio Perez | Force India | 24.267 | 1.683 | 36 |
30 | Sergio Perez | Force India | 24.303 | 1.719 | 18 |
31 | Romain Grosjean | Lotus | 24.554 | 1.970 | 33 |
32 | Felipe Massa | Williams | 24.670 | 2.086 | 34 |
33 | Felipe Nasr | Sauber | 24.763 | 2.179 | 10 |
34 | Pastor Maldonado | Lotus | 24.842 | 2.258 | 12 |
35 | Sergio Perez | Force India | 25.041 | 2.457 | 1 |
36 | Alexander Rossi | Manor | 25.088 | 2.504 | 33 |
37 | Alexander Rossi | Manor | 25.146 | 2.562 | 22 |
38 | Will Stevens | Manor | 25.875 | 3.291 | 21 |
39 | Daniel Ricciardo | Red Bull | 26.087 | 3.503 | 1 |
40 | Felipe Massa | Williams | 26.735 | 4.151 | 16 |
41 | Max Verstappen | Toro Rosso | 27.793 | 5.209 | 9 |
42 | Felipe Massa | Williams | 34.166 | 11.582 | 1 |
43 | Will Stevens | Manor | 35.760 | 13.176 | 42 |
44 | Carlos Sainz Jnr | Toro Rosso | 39.345 | 16.761 | 27 |
2015 Japanese Grand Prix
- Verstappen earns plaudits for Japan and Singapore performances
- Sponsor watch: 2015 Singapore and Japanese Grands Prix
- Second-best Singapore GP but lowest score for Suzuka
- 2015 Japanese Grand Prix team radio transcript
- Top ten pictures from the 2015 Japanese Grand Prix
PorscheF1 (@xtwl)
27th September 2015, 16:10
Still surprising only Hamilton went for the ‘advised’ option/option/prime strategy. Even the FOM feed broadcasted that strategy at the beginning of the race. For neither of the other top 6 cars it ever seemed a possibility to go for a second option stint. Might have helped Vettel to get over Rosberg. Possibly the Mercedes car flattered the option tyre in Hamiltons second stint making my point pointless.
Srdjan Mandic (@srga91)
27th September 2015, 22:19
Wasn’t Bottas on the same strategy as Hamilton?!
The hards seemed to work really well from the 2nd stint on. Bottas was struggling to get into the 1:39s on new Mediums, while Seb, Nico & Kimi were lapping in high 1:38s to low 1:39s on the Hards.
Lewis on the other hand managed to get more performance out of the Mediums. In the beginning he was over a second/lap faster than Seb & Nico, but then the gap between both compounds got smaller and smaller almost every lap.
In the final stint, when everybody was on the Hards, Bottas didn’t loose as much time as he did in stint #2 and Lewis put in that mega-lap which was 1 sec quicker than anything else.
Which suggests to me that the Hard was the tyre to be on (at least in the 2nd half of the race).
ColdFly F1 - @coldfly (@)
27th September 2015, 19:18
Verstappen lost 5.2sec during his first stop, and subsequently was caught up behind Alonso for many laps. I just wonder if he could have come in even closer had his team done a normal stop.
But (there is always a but), had Verstappen not been behind Alonso we might not have seen his daring try at passing Alonso at 130R on the outside. (PS – failed attempt in this case)
q85
27th September 2015, 21:24
Really a safety car or virtual safety car should of been used to remove that debris. There is a still a bizarre inconsistency with the use of the safety car.
I am glad though at this track (spoon aside) there is a general punishment for running off the circuit. Most of the corners have grass and gravel. And the ones that don’t have astroturf that will slow you down. Even at the chicane it was so badly laid you were running a risk going over it.
David Not Coulthard (@davidnotcoulthard)
28th September 2015, 8:44
One lap later Ferrari lost 2nd place……