Rate the race: 2023 Japanese Grand Prix

36 comments on “Rate the race: 2023 Japanese Grand Prix”

1. 

   Jere (@jerejj)
   24th September 2023, 7:37

   A decent race overall from P2 downwards.
   1. 

      Apophis (@apophisjj)
      24th September 2023, 7:58

      Even Norris and Piastri finished 17 seconds apart from eachother.
   2. 

      Simon
      24th September 2023, 16:07

      Number 7, Lucky seven. There we are. Full house 🎯🏆
2. 

   S
   24th September 2023, 7:44

   5
   Few points of interest early on – but not much later on.
3. 

   Eduardo Paja
   24th September 2023, 7:48

   1/10
   Not worth being awake for. Procession.
   1. 

      cdfemke (@cdfemke)
      24th September 2023, 8:04

      Did you accidentaly started a replay of last weeks race??
      1. 

         Esploratore (@esploratore1)
         24th September 2023, 8:38

         Last week’s race was the best of the year, maybe only joint-best with zandvoort thanks to the rain.
         1. 

            Nick T.
            24th September 2023, 8:48

            Zandvoort for me was easily the best race of the year. I love Suzuka, but this will join a handful of other races this year that were incredibly boring. Not the worst race of the year by any means, but a 4/10. We’ve had a few 1 or 2 out of 10 this year too. Luckily, we’ve been blessed with a couple 8/10s.

            Either way, watch seasons like 2007, 2010, 2012 and even 2014 and you’ll see a huge amount of 8/10, 9/10 and 9.9/10 GPs. I watch them over and over again and they’re still exciting to watch. Today’s cars are the size of RVs and equally heavy. Not very dynamic stuff.
      2. 

         MadMax (@madmax)
         24th September 2023, 9:30

         Hi Versi fan
4. 

   RBAlonso (@rbalonso)
   24th September 2023, 8:11

   I gave it a 7. Good strategic offset for Alonso and Russell meant there were some real overtakes and the drs moves were competitive. Incredible moves from Hamilton into 130r and Leclerc into Sebeestian corner. A very Noah’s arc formation with close racing on lap one too. Overall, watching these cars race closely and attack Suzuka is a joy but knocking off a few points for lack of a surprise factor, someone rising through the field or a real top 3 battle. Still a very enjoyable GP.
   1. 

      Nick T.
      24th September 2023, 8:56

      Not sure WTH Aston was thinking. You NEVER pit your car when you’re staying ahead of faster cars and you know that every lap you keep them behind you is going to make you more competitive with them at the end. An undercut doesn’t mean anything when you do it that early. Ridiculous strategy starting the race on softs. I doubt the AM had the ability to beat the Mercs regardless of the strategy, but the strategy they chose gave them no chance, especially when they didn’t factor in that their first stop would see them getting stuck behind Ocon. He lost about 15 seconds getting stuck behind Ocon.

      I won’t let Alonso off the hook completely though. We know how smart he is and apparently he agreed to this strategy. Maybe their real plan was to hope that they’d gain time and position and luck into a safety car within a pit window for the softs.
      1. 

         RBAlonso (@rbalonso)
         24th September 2023, 11:24

         Tbh I felt going into the race that 8th was the only realistic outcome and that the softs were simply to try gain track position and hope for a DRS train. Getting to sixth at the start was inflating Aston’s hand, ultimately they were lucky to make q3. I think that their strategy was looking backwards at the ATs and the Alpines and covered the ATs at their first stop rather than fighting the cars ahead. I agree it’s a strategy based on a safety car and whilst the mediums may have improved his race time he was still 17s off Russell and 24s behind Sainz. It was a gamble that felt like the only thing to do. It also put them up at the ‘front’ for a few laps which might feel better from a marketing angle. The truth is Aston are now comfortably the fifth fastest team and have been for a number of rounds.
5. 

   Tommy C (@tommy-c)
   24th September 2023, 8:18

   A thoroughly enjoyable race! So thrilled for Oscar to finally take a genuine F1 podium. He’s been looking good for it for a while. McLaren seemed to be a clear step ahead of both Mercedes and Ferrari. Hopefully this will translate to race wins in the near future. Some great racing through the field and some interesting variation in strategy. I just love F1 at Suzuka. What an incredible circuit!
6. 

   Keith Campbell (@keithedin)
   24th September 2023, 8:30

   I thought it was a little dull tbh and gave it a 4. There were different strategies and tyre offsets, but in most cases the performance differences between cars meant it was pretty predictable where everyone would end up. Ferrari vs Mercedes was the only real competition, but only for fifth place.
7. 

   Nick T.
   24th September 2023, 9:05

   BTW, whenever I try to register an account, an activation email never arrives. Tried a few times with different emails (with months in between) with the same result.
   1. 

      Nick T.
      24th September 2023, 9:06

      And, yes, checked spam/junk box each time.
   2. 

      Paul
      24th September 2023, 12:17

      I’ve had the same problem for years, I just gave up on bothering.
   3. 

      BasCB (@bascb)
      25th September 2023, 13:40

      Have you tried writing to the site administrators directly?
8. 

   MichaelN
   24th September 2023, 9:49

   Huge gaps at the front, no question about who’d win. Not the ingredients for a great race.

   Thanks to Hamilton for making the highlights a fun watch at least.
9. 

   Tys (@bwoken14)
   24th September 2023, 10:08

   6-7/10 – Certainly better than the real dross of this season (Baku, Hungary etc) and overall very competitive below Max with some decent battles and intrigue. Same argument I made for Miami, decent fun.
10. 

    KaIIe (@kaiie)
    24th September 2023, 10:10

    Weird to see most ratings between 8 and 6. I thought it was a rather boring race with simply not much going on. I mean, there was time to keep the camera on Perez’s “retired” car for a good 30 seconds in the middle of the race; that should tell you something.
    1. 

       Nick T.
       24th September 2023, 11:00

       Every time I see these ratings I assume these fans have started watching within the last five or so years. Unless, you’re grading on a curve (F1 has almost always had a number of races that should earn under 1/10 – 4/10 per season, but they usually had more races deserving of an 8-10). I think F1 has more 5/10 races than ever and less 1 to 3/10 races than the past, but far fewer genuine crackers.
       1. 

          MichaelN
          24th September 2023, 11:51

          I think F1 has more 5/10 races than ever and less 1 to 3/10 races than the past, but far fewer genuine crackers.

          Indeed. Everything is far more stable, predictable and less on edge.

          Not just in F1, mind. All of motorsport is seeing the effects of stagnation in technology, focus on cost reduction, a no-risk approach to adverse weather or track conditions, etc.
          1. 

             Paul
             24th September 2023, 12:21

             Yep, the cost reduction, everything with a sensor or monitor on it etc has resulted in cars having to be more reliable, long gone are the days when you used to see a couple of engines blow up during a race each race.

             In past decades you could never really be sure of the result until the final lap (and sometimes not even then)

             These days, we just worry about losing 0.1 sec of a lap due to a damaged floor. Unless somebody prangs it.
       2. 

          Apophis (@apophisjj)
          24th September 2023, 16:37

          I think it’s just that people don’t necessarily know how to properly rate things or simply don’t care about the number itself. They’ll say things like “it was pretty ok 9/10”. Also, I’ve said it before, the top 100 is rather meaningless to me since people don’t rate the races based on absolute values, but on relative ones (eg. how boring/exciting the previous races were, how the favourite driver/team is performing and so on). I rated this race 4/10.
11. 

    tielemst
    24th September 2023, 10:40

    5. Some nice moments (twice cut short by team orders) and some excitement for the wrong reasons (Perez, sargeant), but in the end a very forgettable race.
12. 

    Esploratore (@esploratore1)
    24th September 2023, 11:05

    I gave it 5, perhaps should’ve been more because there were a few battles between the merc and the ferraris, but positions basically locked in in front and the dominance is really taking its toll, I’m surprised there were so many between 6-8, or well, 6 is understandable, more surprised by the 7s or higher, 55% atm with 45 voters.
13. 

    BLS (@brightlampshade)
    24th September 2023, 11:30

    A very middling race, yes there was some action but it was all easy to see coming.
14. 

    David BR (@david-br)
    24th September 2023, 13:00

    8, I actually enjoyed it a lot despite the Max win being obvious after he drove through the middle of the McLaren sandwich (Norris backing out, probably the right call, though I’m not sure as I don’t think Verstappen would have in reversed positions). The two-stop made the rest of the positions volatile, stop strategy important, and there was some good racing.
15. 

    Roger Ayles (@roger-ayles)
    24th September 2023, 15:06

    5/10.

    Typical higher degredation multiple stop race where the strategy offsets make things a bit trickier to follow and the high deg and massive performance variance with new/old tires create a lot of passing but not a lot of actual competitive and exciting racing/overtaking.

    Thats always the problem with races with high deg and huge undercuts. It creates a lot of passing as cars on fresh tires get by those on older ones but the downside always is that the racing/overtaking is never especially competitive as the performance difference is usually so high the passes are done quickly and easily.

    I much prefer competitive racing where we see good fights over many laps with a driver having to work at trying to pull off an overtake rather than the sort of catch and pass instantly we saw in many cases today.

    It’s the definition of the problem with the show over sport and quantity over quality approach that Liberty seem to want to push.

    This race may have featured quite a lot of passing but none of it was exciting, none of it stands out, none of it will be remembered and this race will be very quickly forgotten.
16. 

    spoutnik (@spoutnik)
    24th September 2023, 15:07

    Happy to have watched it in replay, solid 5 I’d say. A bit of entertainment at the start, then not much afterwards. Kudos to McLaren with this strong result though!
    1. 

       BasCB (@bascb)
       25th September 2023, 13:42

       Yeah, I guess a replay or 30 minute edit would have easily packed in most of what happened. I watched it while preparing and eating breakfast, not a bad way of waking up on a sunday before getting to do a bit of work.
17. 

    Darryn Smith (@darryn)
    24th September 2023, 18:11

    Dull. Watched the gap to Norris comfortably expand for about 5 laps and then figured my time could be used in a better way and switched it off.
18. 

    GmP (@gmp)
    25th September 2023, 2:04

    8 for me just for Piastri result. Perfection from Max, some strategy calls (team orders) that worked out. McLaren excellent race. Decent, good F1 race.
    1. 

       GmP (@gmp)
       25th September 2023, 2:06

       Forgot to add the Liam Lawson finishing ahead of Yuki result. Why anyone would want Daniel back in that car (or the RB team) beats me.
19. 

    Kerry Maxwell (@kerrymaxwell)
    26th September 2023, 14:10

    5/10

    Rating certainly impacted by my memory of epic races at Suzuka, increasing my expectations, but this race seemed both dull and majorly cringe when a driver for the team that clinched the team title in the race was out playing bumper cars the whole race.

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