2002 Japanese Grand Prix

  2002 Japanese Grand Prix

Race details
Race 17 of 17 in the 2002 Formula One season
Date	13 October 2002
Official name	XXVIII Fuji Television Japanese Grand Prix
Location	Suzuka Circuit, Suzuka, Mie, Japan
Course	Permanent racing facility
Course length	5.821 km (3.617 mi)
Distance	53 laps, 308.513 km (191.701 mi)
Weather	Sunny, Air: 26 °C (79 °F), Track 30 °C (86 °F)
Attendance	155,000[1]
Pole position
Driver	Michael Schumacher	Ferrari
Time	1:31.317
Fastest lap
Driver	Michael Schumacher	Ferrari
Time	1:36.125 on lap 15
Podium
First	Michael Schumacher	Ferrari
Second	Rubens Barrichello	Ferrari
Third	Kimi Räikkönen	McLaren-Mercedes
Lap leaders

The 2002 Japanese Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held at Suzuka on 13 October 2002. It was the seventeenth and final round of the 2002 Formula One season. The 53-lap race was won by Ferrari driver Michael Schumacher after starting from pole position. Rubens Barrichello finished second and Kimi Räikkönen completed the podium, in third place.

This was the last race for Eddie Irvine, Allan McNish, Alex Yoong and Mika Salo.

Reports

Background

With both drivers and constructors title already decided, the fight in the championships now concentrates on the lower ranks.In the Drivers' Championship, Juan Pablo Montoya in 3rd is 5 points ahead of team-mate Ralf Schumacher and for Ralf to take 3rd he would need to either win the race provided that Montoya finishes lower that second or to finish second with Montoya out of the point-scoring positions. David Coulthard has a slim chance of winning 3rd place but that can only happen if he wins the Japanese Grand Prix with Montoya finishing 3rd or lower. Coulthard could take 4th in the Championship by finishing 4th and ahead of Ralf Schumacher. Further down, a number of drivers will have a chance to improve their final ranking but it will all depend on whether they can actually score points. In the Constructors' Championship, Ferrari, Williams and McLaren have secured 1st to 3rd. Renault have almost clinched 4th as Sauber would need to win the race with their second car finishing in the points to take 4th and provided that Renault would not finish either of their cars in the points and that is nearly impossible. However, with just 4 points separating 4 teams (Sauber on 11, Jaguar with 8 and both Honda runners BAR and Jordan with 7 points each), it will be a tough fight between those teams to decide the order in which they finish the season as the final ranking influences how much a team receives from the revenue of TV rights. Ferrari are expected to dominate this race. If Michael manages to win the race, he will not only improve his record number of wins in a season but will also have a perfect finishing record this season as Michael has not retired from any race so far in the season. That is an amazing record. And, if he finishes the race on the podium, he will have finished on the podium in every race of the season.^[2] The fight between Williams and McLaren will be very close. Williams will benefit from their BMW power but McLaren have been improving and this circuit will suit their chassis. Both teams have suffered from engine failures lately and that could influence the outcome of this race. Behind the top 3, Renault continue to score points left over from the top 3 teams while Sauber continues to struggle in the face of the tough competition. Jaguar struggled at the United States Grand Prix but they should do better here and both BAR and Jordan would be hoping to get a boost from Honda and Bridgestone at their home track. It is also the first Formula 1 race for Toyota at home and they would want to put on a strong showing with the aim of scoring a point or two so that they finish ahead of Minardi and Arrows in the championship.

In 2001, Michael Schumacher won the race starting from pole with Juan Pablo Montoya finishing a strong second while David Coulthard finishing in 3rd. Mika Häkkinen, Rubens Barrichello and Ralf Schumacher made the top 6. The top 3 teams took the top 6 places.

A number of teams were testing the previous week before the Grand Prix. McLaren, Williams, Toyota and BAR were at Barcelona and McLaren test driver Alexander Wurz broke the lap record there. Ferrari were testing at Mugello with Sauber and at Jerez and Fiorano while Renault and Jordan tested at Silverstone. The teams concentrated on set-up for the Grand Prix as well as testing components for the 2003 season.^[3]

Qualifying

Michael Schumacher grabbed his 7th pole position of the season and the 50th of his career ahead of team-mate Rubens Barrichello and David Coulthard. Kimi Räikkönen was 4th ahead of Ralf Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya. Takuma Sato managed 7th and his best ever qualifying ahead of his team-mate Giancarlo Fisichella. Jacques Villeneuve was 9th with Jenson Button wrapping up the top 10.

The session was interrupted for over 75 minutes after Allan McNish appeared to have lost control of his car and crashed backwards through the safety barrier at the 130R curve. The back of his car was destroyed, luckily though he didn't sustain any major injuries. He qualified in 18th, however was unfit to start the race.^[4]

The fight for pole turned to be a no-contest with Michael Schumacher convincingly faster than anyone else here including his team-mate. The fight at the front was really between the other 5 drivers of the top 3 teams. For most of the session they appeared to be evenly matched however Barrichello, Coulthard and Räikkönen all managed to improve late in the session while Ralf Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya didn't and hence the final order.

Behind the top 3 teams, the Jordan team took the honours of the best of the rest thanks to a more powerful Honda engine. Takuma Sato impressed his home crowds by not just outqualifying his team-mate but also ending up in 7th and only 1.773 seconds off Michael's pace despite this being his first time on the track in a Formula 1 car. Behind Sato, it was close as expected with 1 second separating Sato in 7th and Massa in 15th.

In addition to McNish's crash, Olivier Panis and Eddie Irvine suffered from car problems and had to stop on the track. Panis managed to get back and use the spare but Irvine didn't.

In the battle of the team-mates, Mika Salo managed to qualify 1.449 seconds ahead of Allan McNish although McNish had his crash and only had 1 run. Jacques Villeneuve managed to qualify 0.843 seconds ahead of Olivier Panis but again Panis had car problems and had to switch to the spare and Michael Schumacher managed to out-qualify Rubens Barrichello by 0.432 seconds. Closest were Ralf Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya with just 0.063 seconds separating them. David Coulthard managed to be 0.109 seconds ahead of Kimi Räikkönen and Jenson Button was 0.118 seconds ahead of Jarno Trulli who also suffered a car problem on his final run.

Takuma Sato had his best qualifying position the season while Michael Schumacher once again equalled his best. Both Ralf Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya equalled their worst qualifying positions this season.

Classification

Qualifying

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Lap	Gap
1	1	Michael Schumacher	Ferrari	1:31.317
2	2	Rubens Barrichello	Ferrari	1:31.749	+0.432
3	3	David Coulthard	McLaren-Mercedes	1:32.088	+0.771
4	4	Kimi Räikkönen	McLaren-Mercedes	1:32.197	+0.880
5	5	Ralf Schumacher	Williams-BMW	1:32.444	+1.127
6	6	Juan Pablo Montoya	Williams-BMW	1:32.507	+1.190
7	10	Takuma Sato	Jordan-Honda	1:33.090	+1.773
8	9	Giancarlo Fisichella	Jordan-Honda	1:33.276	+1.959
9	11	Jacques Villeneuve	BAR-Honda	1:33.349	+2.032
10	15	Jenson Button	Renault	1:33.429	+2.112
11	14	Jarno Trulli	Renault	1:33.547	+2.230
12	7	Nick Heidfeld	Sauber-Petronas	1:33.553	+2.236
13	24	Mika Salo	Toyota	1:33.742	+2.425
14	16	Eddie Irvine	Jaguar-Cosworth	1:33.915	+2.598
15	8	Felipe Massa	Sauber-Petronas	1:33.979	+2.662
16	12	Olivier Panis	BAR-Honda	1:34.192	+2.875
17	17	Pedro de la Rosa	Jaguar-Cosworth	1:34.227	+2.910
18	25	Allan McNish	Toyota	1:35.191	+3.874
19	23	Mark Webber	Minardi-Asiatech	1:35.958	+4.641
20	22	Alex Yoong	Minardi-Asiatech	1:36.267	+4.950
Source:[5]

Race

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	1	Michael Schumacher	Ferrari	53	1:26:59.698	1	10
2	2	Rubens Barrichello	Ferrari	53	+0.506	2	6
3	4	Kimi Räikkönen	McLaren-Mercedes	53	+23.292	4	4
4	6	Juan Pablo Montoya	Williams-BMW	53	+36.275	6	3
5	10	Takuma Sato	Jordan-Honda	53	+1:22.694	7	2
6	15	Jenson Button	Renault	52	+1 Lap	10	1
7	7	Nick Heidfeld	Sauber-Petronas	52	+1 Lap	12
8	24	Mika Salo	Toyota	52	+1 Lap	13
9	16	Eddie Irvine	Jaguar-Cosworth	52	+1 Lap	14
10	23	Mark Webber	Minardi-Asiatech	51	+2 Laps	19
11	5	Ralf Schumacher	Williams-BMW	48	Engine	5
Ret	17	Pedro de la Rosa	Jaguar-Cosworth	39	Transmission	17
Ret	9	Giancarlo Fisichella	Jordan-Honda	37	Engine	8
Ret	14	Jarno Trulli	Renault	32	Mechanical	11
Ret	11	Jacques Villeneuve	BAR-Honda	27	Engine	9
Ret	22	Alex Yoong	Minardi-Asiatech	14	Spun off	20
Ret	12	Olivier Panis	BAR-Honda	8	Mechanical	16
Ret	3	David Coulthard	McLaren-Mercedes	7	Throttle	3
Ret	8	Felipe Massa	Sauber-Petronas	3	Accident	15
DNS	25	Allan McNish	Toyota	-	Injured in qualifying	18
Sources:[5][6]

Championship standings after the race

• Bold text indicates the World Champions.

Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1 Michael Schumacher 144 2 Rubens Barrichello 77 3 Juan Pablo Montoya 50 4 Ralf Schumacher 42 5 David Coulthard 41

Constructors' Championship standings Pos Constructor Points 1 Ferrari 221 2 Williams-BMW 92 3 McLaren-Mercedes 65 4 Renault 23 5 Sauber-Petronas 11

• Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings.

References

1. F1 Racing. November 2002.
2. "Hall of Fame - Michael Schumacher". formula1.com. Archived from the original on 28 June 2007. Retrieved 23 February 2016.
3. "2002 Japanese GP - Race Preview". NewsOnF1. Retrieved 10 January 2016.
4. McNish, Allan (13 October 2002). "McNish ruled out of Japanese GP". The Official Website of Allan McNish. Allan McNish. Archived from the original on January 30, 2011. Retrieved 31 October 2012.
5. "Grand Prix of Japan". FIA.com. Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile. Archived from the original on 18 October 2012. Retrieved 26 December 2015.
6. "2002 Japanese Grand Prix". Formula1.com. Formula1.com Limited. Archived from the original on 13 October 2014. Retrieved 26 December 2015.

Coordinates: 34°50′35″N 136°32′26″E / 34.84306°N 136.54056°E