Here comes the much awaited review of the Japanese Grand Prix 2008. Just Kidding! I could have done away with the reviews of last three races but then decided to post it for the sake of completeness. What I’m going to do here is write very short notes on invidual performances and not go into description of events as I usually do. I’ll round it up with the complete race results. First up, its the Japanese GP won by none other than Fernando Alonso.

Fernando Alonso proved once again why he’s one of the best, if not the best driver in F1 right now. This was his second win in a row. He could challenge and at times, decimate the competition with a car which at best is two tenths of a second slower than the best in the grid. He is responsible for pulling up a team which was down and out at the start of the season. Its his hard work alone, that has produced back to back wins for the former two time world champion. He is showing the world how its done even with inferior machinery.

Robert Kubica scored the second position with another superb drive. He is a driver for the future and big teams must be keeping both eyes on him. Lately, he has expressed his disappointment at the way things are at BMW. Its possible that he might make a move to one of the biggies sometime soon. Kimi Raikkonen seemed to get his things together while he scored third for Ferrari. It was ne of the few occassions when he seemed to have the measure of his team mate, Felipe Massa.

Among the main championship contenders, Felipe Massa finished in seventh place after starting 5th on the grid while one the other hand, his rival, Lewis Hamilton of McLaren finished in a disappointing 12th place after starting the race from pole position. Nelson Piquet, Jarno Trulli, Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber were the others amongst points. The full race results are as follows -

1 – Fernando Alonso – Renault – 67 – 1:30:21.892
2 – Robert Kubica – BMW Sauber – 67 – +5.2 secs
3 – Kimi Räikkönen – Ferrari – 67 – +6.4 secs
4 – Nelsinho Piquet – Renault – 67 – +20.5 secs
5 – Jarno Trulli – Toyota – 67 – +23.7 secs
6 – Sebastian Vettel – STR-Ferrari – 67 – +39.2 secs
7 – Felipe Massa – Ferrari – 67 – +46.1 secs
8 – Mark Webber – Red Bull-Renault – 67 – +50.8 secs

9 – Nick Heidfeld – BMW Sauber – 67 – +54.1 secs
10 – Sebastien Bourdais – STR-Ferrari – 67 – +59.0 secs
11 – Nico Rosberg – Williams-Toyota – 67 – +62.0 secs
12 – Lewis Hamilton – McLaren-Mercedes – 67 – +78.9 secs
13 – Rubens Barrichello – Honda – 66 – +1 Lap
14 – Jenson Button – Honda – 66 – +1 Lap
15 – Kazuki Nakajima – Williams-Toyota – 66 – +1 Lap

Ret – Giancarlo Fisichella – Force India-Ferrari – 21 – Gearbox
Ret – Heikki Kovalainen – McLaren-Mercedes – 16 – Engine
Ret – Adrian Sutil – Force India-Ferrari – 8 – Puncture
Ret – Timo Glock – Toyota – 6 – Accident Damage
Ret – David Coulthard – Red Bull-Renault – 0 – Accident