With just two rounds left to settle the winner of the Heaven & Hell tour the gloves were well and truly off in Japan.

The usual names fought it out for the front spots until Force India stunned everyone by putting both their drivers near the front of the grid. Child prodigy Sam_LFC marked himself out as one to watch by putting his Force India on the #2 slot for the race. Shamblemonkee took up his usual residence in 3^rd place and Williams were left wondering what had gone wrong with Superdelphinus starting 4^th. Confirming the force Indias pace ElGloverino started in 5^th.

Meanwhile Red Bull’s Iceman remained unflustered, sticking the RB7 on pole with nearly half a second to spare.

After qualifying was over Force India were the team everyone was talking about; “was their speed the result of their technology sharing agreement with McLaren?”, “should the scope of technology sharing be reviewed?”, “was Sam a star of the future or was the car flattering him?”.

With the buzz surrounding the new teams and the title fight entering its final phases the atmosphere was electric for the start of the race.

Five Red Lights

Everyone got away cleanly for the start McLaren’s shamblemonkeee couldn’t shut the down in time down to the first corner and superdelphinus repaid the favour form Brazilby sneaking up the inside and in to 3^rd. Corstick retained 1^st but had a Force India hot on his heels.

Going in to lap 2 the front 5 were all still nip and tuck. As they entered the S curves Sam_LFC was really beginning to hustle the Red Bull, however his relative inexperience showed as his engine overheated from running so closely over the previous lap and a distraught Team saw their #1 driver cast to the sidelines;- still keep your eyes on Sam_LFC he looks like a contender of the future.

Over the rest of the first stint 3 distinct battles took place; the hungry pack, ahead of them -shambles and Elgloverino and a few seconds up the road a fight which sent the crowd wild as superdelphinus and corstick diced for the lead until the first round of stops. Nervous messages were passed back and forth between the teams and their drivers each trying to second guess the others strategy, Christian Horner had to gaffa tape his wayward foot to his chair, meanwhile nearly everyone else was out of theirs as nervous pit crews fought to shave valuable time and secure the undercuts.

Further down the road a similar battle was taking place between shamblemonkee and ElGloverino.  The McLaren’s qualifying pace didn’t seem to be translating to race pace and the Force India was often hustling shamblemonkee along by the end of their stints on contrasting tyre compounds.

As the trace above clearly shows that battle raged for the entire race and was only decided after McLaren were forced to save fuel in the final laps, allowing ElGloverino to take the podium from him and confirm that Force India aren’t messing around.

Back at the front corstick’s luck finally ran out when the kerbs of Suzuka decided ot have a bite of the Rb7’s tyres, not liking the taste he was spat out and deposited trackside allowing superdelphinus through to take the win and keep the title fight alive.

McLaren were again left scratching their heads over vyseofhrs race as he received 20 seconds of penalties for gesticulating at other drivers. Reports are rife that his rocky relationship with the superstar girlfriend hello kitty model is over and that this could be impacting his form. Meanwhile shamblemonkee was left hoping that he could take the fight to Williams and red bull in the upcoming World Championship after securing 3^rd in the H&H tour.

Ferrari had a stronger race than previous weeks and looked strong mid-way through the race but an aggressive 2 stop strategy failed to pay off for Agrocroc and he slid down the order. The excessive Agrocroc took some cooling down after the race;

Scoobiesi looked more like his old self and came in not far behind his teammate, ensuring that the constructors fight between Mercedes and Ferrari will go down to the wire.

Jonbodz continues to show strong form for Lotus if only they can get the car setup to perform consistently.