Got your pass? Check. McLaren kit? Check. Okay, good, now switch off your phone and follow us through the glass doors and into the Paddock Performance Centre. Grab a coffee on your way in, and we’ll get started with our engineering briefing for the Japanese Grand Prix.

With less than a week separating this Asian double-header, more than 3,000 miles to travel and the nine-hour time difference to overcome - having worked on BST time in Singapore - there was no chance to celebrate our result at the Marina Bay Street Circuit. 

Instead, it's been heads down ever since, with Daniel set to take on the upgrade package that Lando ran in the last round. That's as well as the busier than usual preparations for a circuit we've not visited since 2019.

You'd be hard pressed to find a driver who doesn't love the Suzuka International Racing Course, but that doesn't make gearing up for it any simpler. Adrian Goodwin is leading this weekend's briefing and will look to explain why it's such a favourite of the drivers, and what unique challenges we can expect. Take notes if you need them, but please keep them to yourself.

Engineer: Adrian Goodwin
Event: Japanese Grand Prix
Circuit: Suzuka International Racing Course

Background

Regarding set-up, 2022 features a big reset, so coming back to a track we haven’t visited since 2019 isn’t such a huge disadvantage – but it does make it a little tougher to extrapolate a set-up from previous data.

Here is harder than Singapore, because a variable like downforce-to-drag level wasn’t so important in Marina Bay. It is here. The biggest uncertainty this weekend is what downforce level we want to run. That’s a little harder to extrapolate from 2019 data.

Key points

1 | Upgrades

The big item this weekend is that Daniel’s car now has the upgrade that first ran on Lando’s car last weekend in Singapore. In practical terms, that means a reverse of the programme from last Friday, with our side the garage seeking to understand the upgrade package, while Lando’s side concentrates on the normal range of set-up work.

We have the advantage of Lando’s data from Singapore to help – but realistically, that is only the running he did on the Medium tyre in the race. Saturday was wet and neither car would claim to have found a fantastic balance on Friday, but what Lando learned in the second half of the Singapore Grand Prix will definitely feed into what we do here.

2 | DRS

Overtaking has been a little easier in 2022 and here, with one DRS zone on the main straight, we’ll want to be quick in the final sector, coming up and through 130R, to be within – or outside if defending – DRS detection. This is balanced by the need to have plenty of downforce for the high-speed first sector. There’s a compromise to explore.

Another quirk is that the first corner isn’t really a braking zone, so DRS doesn’t automatically deactivate. That is something that has to be studied – particularly given the likely affect it will have on porpoising, and our new legality measurements for that.

3 | Cornering and kerbs

Suzuka has some fabulous high-speed corners – but also some really good low-speed corners too! The high-speed parts, particularly through the first sector, is where you generate a lot of lap-time. The car needs to feel responsive when changing direction, which pushes you to want roll stiffness that’s quite high.

However, you’re trading that stiffness against wanting the car to be good over the kerbs in the final chicane. You do want to have some compliance in the car to run those kerbs, especially during the race if you’re looking to take a different line to prepare an overtaking move. Something to investigate.

Those kerbs are the only ones you really want to hit, to open up the corner and gain quite a bit of lap-time. Regarding kerbs elsewhere around the circuit, somewhere like Degner will be interesting because there really isn’t much margin there if these low, stiff cars react badly to the kerbs.

It’s probably the case you’ll avoid these kerbs, sacrificing a little here to gain a bigger benefit elsewhere. Certainly, it’s one we’ll have the drivers approach cautiously in practice and warm-up to, rather than going straight out and hitting both hard at the start of the session.

4 | Tyres

As usual, we’ll want to get a good read on all the tyres. The last time we were here, in 2019, the race was a mix of one and two-stoppers. If you want to do a one stop, you’ll have to use the Hard tyre, so that’ll certainly be something we need to understand – particularly if the track is on the colder side and we need to understand the warm-up.

On the subject of tyres, the programme for today is a little unusual in that FP2 is given-over to Pirelli prototype tyre testing. We get two prototype tyres to use and a set of Mediums we have to use. Effectively, it means there’s one fewer set of Softs this weekend – but we do have an FP2 session extended to 90 minutes.

Of course, doing this work requires the sessions to be dry – which at the moment looks unlikely!

Briefing complete. Time for Lando and Daniel to head out onto the track so we can collect some data and put our hard work to the test.

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