2002 Japanese Grand Prix

2002 Japanese Grand Prix
2002 Japanese Grand Prix
Race 17 of 17 in the 2002 Formula One World Championship
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Race details
Date	13 October 2002
Official name	2002 Fuji Television Japanese Grand Prix
Location	Suzuka Circuit; Suzuka, Mie, Japan
Course	Permanent racing facility
Course length	5.821 km (3.617 miles)
Distance	53 laps, 308.317 km (191.579 miles)
Weather	Sunny, Air: 26 °C (79 °F), Track 30 °C (86 °F)
Attendance	326,000
Pole position
Driver	Michael Schumacher;
Time	1:31.317
Fastest lap
Driver	Michael Schumacher
Time	1:36.125 on lap 15
Podium
First	Michael Schumacher;
Second	Rubens Barrichello;
Third	Kimi Räikkönen;
	Lap leaders ;

The 2002 Japanese Grand Prix (formally the 2002 Fuji Television Japanese Grand Prix)^[4] was a Formula One motor race held at Suzuka on 13 October 2002. It was the seventeenth and final race of the 2002 FIA Formula One World Championship. It is also the last race held on this layout.

The 53-lap race was won by Michael Schumacher, driving a Ferrari. Schumacher took pole position, led the whole race except during the pit stops, and set the fastest race lap. It was his eleventh win of the season and the fifteenth for the Ferrari team, thus equalling the record set by McLaren in 1988. Teammate Rubens Barrichello finished second, with Kimi Räikkönen third in a McLaren-Mercedes.

This was the last race for 1999 runner-up Eddie Irvine and Mika Salo, who had been in F1 since 1993 and 1994 respectively. It was also the last race for Alex Yoong and Allan McNish, though the latter could not participate in the race itself due to injuries suffered in a heavy crash during qualifying.

This was the last race to use the 10-6-4-3-2-1 points system first introduced in 1991, and also the last race to use the race weekend format first introduced in 1996, with 3 practice sessions (two on Friday, one on Saturday morning), a one-hour qualifying session and a Sunday morning warm-up. The race would also mark Ferrari's last one-two finish for a year until the 2004 Australian Grand Prix.^[5]

Background

With both drivers and constructors title already decided, the fight in the championships concentrated on the lower ranks. In the Drivers' Championship, Juan Pablo Montoya was 3rd, 5 points ahead of teammate Ralf Schumacher. For Ralf to take 3rd, he needed to either win the race, provided that Montoya finished lower than second, or to finish second with Montoya out of the point-scoring positions. David Coulthard had a slim chance of winning 3rd place but that could only happen if he won 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 had a chance to improve their final ranking.

In the Constructors' Championship, Ferrari, Williams and McLaren had secured 1st to 3rd. Renault had almost clinched 4th as Sauber would needed at least to win the race with their second car finishing in the points to take 4th. Four points separated four teams (Sauber on 11, Jaguar with 8 and both Honda runners BAR and Jordan with 7 points each) in a tough fight for positions, as the final ranking influenced how much a team received from the revenue of TV rights.

Ferrari were expected to dominate this race. If Michael Schumacher managed to win the race, he would improve his record number of wins with a perfect finishing record, as Schumacher had not retired from any race that year and had finished every race on the podium.^[6] This was the first Formula 1 race for Toyota at their home country of Japan.

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.^[7]

Qualifying

Michael Schumacher grabbed his 7th pole position of the season and the 50th of his career ahead of teammate 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 teammate 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.^[8]

The fight for pole turned to be a no-contest with Michael Schumacher convincingly faster than anyone else here including his teammate. 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 teammate 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 teammates, 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.

Qualifying classification

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Lap	Gap	Grid
1	1	Michael Schumacher	Ferrari	1:31.317		1
2	2	Rubens Barrichello	Ferrari	1:31.749	+0.432	2
3	3	David Coulthard	McLaren-Mercedes	1:32.088	+0.771	3
4	4	Kimi Räikkönen	McLaren-Mercedes	1:32.197	+0.880	4
5	5	Ralf Schumacher	Williams-BMW	1:32.444	+1.127	5
6	6	Juan Pablo Montoya	Williams-BMW	1:32.507	+1.190	6
7	10	Takuma Sato	Jordan-Honda	1:33.090	+1.773	7
8	9	Giancarlo Fisichella	Jordan-Honda	1:33.276	+1.959	8
9	11	Jacques Villeneuve	BAR-Honda	1:33.349	+2.032	9
10	15	Jenson Button	Renault	1:33.429	+2.112	10
11	14	Jarno Trulli	Renault	1:33.547	+2.230	11
12	7	Nick Heidfeld	Sauber-Petronas	1:33.553	+2.236	12
13	24	Mika Salo	Toyota	1:33.742	+2.425	13
14	16	Eddie Irvine	Jaguar-Cosworth	1:33.915	+2.598	14
15	8	Felipe Massa	Sauber-Petronas	1:33.979	+2.662	15
16	12	Olivier Panis	BAR-Honda	1:34.192	+2.875	16
17	17	Pedro de la Rosa	Jaguar-Cosworth	1:34.227	+2.910	17
18	25	Allan McNish	Toyota	1:35.191	+3.874
19	23	Mark Webber	Minardi-Asiatech	1:35.958	+4.641	18
20	22	Alex Yoong	Minardi-Asiatech	1:36.267	+4.950	19
107% time: 1:37.709
Source:^[2]

Race

Race classification

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

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
Source:^[11]

Constructors' Championship standings

	Pos	Constructor	Points
	1	Ferrari	221
	2	Williams-BMW	92
	3	McLaren-Mercedes	65
	4	Renault	23
	5	Sauber-Petronas	11
Source:^[11]

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

References

^ ^a ^b "Japanese Grand Prix – Round 17, October 13, 2002". Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile. Archived from the original on 3 March 2003. Retrieved 18 May 2022.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d "Grand Prix of Japan". FIA.com. Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile. Archived from the original on 18 October 2012. Retrieved 26 December 2015.
^ "Formula 1 Honda Japanese Grand Prix 2022 – Media Kit" (PDF). Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile. 5 October 2022. Retrieved 5 October 2022.
^ "Japanese". Formula1.com. Retrieved 9 November 2021.
^ "Ferrari-one-two-STATS F1". www.statsf1.com. Stats F1. Retrieved 15 August 2022.
^ "Hall of Fame - Michael Schumacher". formula1.com. Archived from the original on 28 June 2007. Retrieved 23 February 2016.
^ "2002 Japanese GP - Race Preview". NewsOnF1. Retrieved 10 January 2016.
^ 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.
^ "2002 Japanese Grand Prix". Formula1.com. Formula1.com Limited. Retrieved 11 April 2020.
^ "2002 FIA Formula One World Championship Japanese Grand Prix". fiaresultsandstatistics.motorsportstats.com.
^ ^a ^b "Japan 2002 - Championship • STATS F1". www.statsf1.com. Retrieved 18 March 2019.

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