No thriller at Suzuka, but stopwatches tell a different story

Had they but known, the International Automobile Federation (FIA) could have saved the 10 teams a few hundred kilometres of power unit life and Pirelli 20 sets of tyres, plus lots of human time and energy, by handing out the trophies for the Japanese Grand Prix after qualifying on Saturday afternoon instead of running the race.

- David Tremayne

Had they done so, they might also have saved 255,000 partisan spectators the anguish of witnessing home hero Yuki Tsunoda struggling to a lowly 12th place after qualifying 15th, in his first outing since his promotion to the Red Bull team.

Why so? Well, because when the race had concluded, all of the top 10 cars had finished in virtually the same order as they had qualified and only a tyre offset enabled Lewis Hamilton to gain a place at increasingly impressive rookie Isack Hadjar's expense. And because the almost complete lack of overtaking among the fast guys meant that surprise pole-sitter Max Verstappen really did all the work he needed to in precisely the 1min 26.983sec that it took to dislodge Lando Norris from the best grid slot. His margin over the points leader was a scant 0.12 seconds, but when it came to the race, the advantage that getting away first and running in clean air gave him was more like 0.12 hours.