4 races (including sprint races) within 4 weeks for Formula 1 before a month long break and it is almost time for Japan to take centre stage. Many teams and drivers will be wanting this break, others will want to go racing immediately after but all recognise why there is such a long gap. Lets preview this race, shall we?

This famous track in Japan has seen champions crowned, teammate controversy and iconic moments between world champions happen.

5.807km around this circuit sees 22 drivers take on 18 corners a total of 53 times. Thats 954 corners for the race winner and 20,988 total corners taken if all 22 drivers finish the race without being lapped. Of course, given the last 2 Grand Prixs has seen at 2 and 4 drivers not even start the formation lap respectfully (both including Oscar Piastri and one Audi) so we could see 6 or 8 drivers not start the race if this record continues.

2 Straight Mode Zones within this weekend:
– 1 on the start/finish straight
– 1 after turn 14 all the way up to 130R.

The Overtake Mode is activited on the start/finish straight too so expect a lot of overtakes there.

Its only round 3 but we already have a rookie taking part in free practice. At the home race of Honda, Aston Martin have chosen Fernando Alonso to sit out FP1 and elected to put the teams third driver Jak Crawford into the seat to fullfil 1 of 4 required replacements across the season. The cancellation of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia could have accelerated this but that hasn’t been confirmed.

A finale for everyone living in the Asia/Oceanic region of the world for good timings across the weekend, not so much for other parts of the world.

Kieran and Jack have attempted to look into the weekend to see who will take the podium and 1 surprise!

Prediction	Chris	Jack	Kieran
Winner	N/A	George Russell	Lewis Hamilton
Podium	N/A	Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Charles Leclerc	Charles Leclerc, Andrea Kimi Antonelli
Surprise	Oscar Piastri completes a racing lap	Alonso gets into Q2	Mercedes Mechanical trouble in qualifying or the race