F1 Fanatic

Massa looked set to lead a Ferrari 1-2 at Singapore - I think he will in Fuji

This year’s Japanese Grand Prix looks set to be dry, potentially giving us a very different race to the dramatic, rain-soaked encounter won by Lewis Hamilton last year.

As I wrote earlier in the week I think Fuji Speedway in the dry will play to Ferrari’s strengths but John Beamer disagrees and McLaren seemed to have an advantage in practice this morning. Who do you think will win in Fuji?

I expected Ferrari to set the pace at Fuji and despite McLaren’s slight edge so far, I’m sticking with that prediction. Although the weather will be on the cool side, which has worked against them earlier this year, they claim to have gotten on top of those problems.

Ferrari will be smarting after their humiliation in Shanghai, and in Fuji I think they will claim the one-two they were on course for before that fateful botched pit stop two weeks ago.

When I wrote about the retirement rates for the different drivers yesterday it struck me that Lewis Hamilton might have mixed feelings about his McLaren’s reliability. As Oliver wrote yesterday:

It would appear the McLaren of Hamilton is long overdue some mechanical failure. I just hope McLaren are not saving their reliability problems for the last few races.

Hamilton is yet to retire from a Grand Prix with a mechanical failure in his 32-race F1 career. Will he feel encouraged that his car is statistically unlikely to fail him, or concerned that the inevitable mechanical DNF must happen sooner or later?

Assuming his car goes the distance, it’s hard to see a rival machine getting between him and the Ferraris, so I’d pick him to finish third:

1. Felipe Massa
2. Kimi Raikkonen
3. Lewis Hamilton

Did anyone pick the surprise winner of the Singapore Grand Prix? Yes – in fact five of you did so congratulations to Santiago, DMW, Sainaa, Senna and AussieLeb.

But will anyone get the entire top three right this time? Make your predictions for the Japanese Grand Prix podium below…

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