Darth Ussh endured an off-colour race in Japan, yet left with a larger championship lead because his closest rival was not on the grid.
Ussh slipped from fifth to seventh and finished 11.186 seconds behind provisional winner HPJones. PolyTromp did not race, however, so Ussh's advantage grew from 38 points to 47 with three rounds remaining.
The result had several causes rather than one decisive mistake. Ussh compromised his first qualifying run, then lost the chance to improve when traffic caught him before his final attempt. At the start, a stuttering car ahead prompted an avoidance move that sent him wide; later, the Virtual Safety Car ended while he was managing his delta without an audible engineer warning. Contact with Tedhead added another interruption before the finish.
HPJones wins while the starting order falls away
HPJones took provisional victory from second on the grid, finishing 1.033 seconds ahead of Erion._ and collecting the eighth win of his IMS career. It was his second victory of the season after his Round 2 success.
It was not a clean run to the flag. HPJones had to recover from a mid-race screen freeze and was also forced off the circuit in contact for which Rickk116 accepted responsibility afterwards. HPJones nevertheless recovered the ground and chose not to pursue an incident report.
The rest of the leading order barely resembled the grid. Erion._ climbed from 15th to second, gennaro1173 finished third from sixth, MagMagnussen rose from 10th to fourth and pwjones completed the top five after starting 19th.
| Driver | Grid | Finish | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| HPJones | 2 | 1 | 30 |
| Erion._ | 15 | 2 | 23 |
| gennaro1173 | 6 | 3 | 19 |
| MagMagnussen | 10 | 4 | 15 |
| pwjones | 19 | 5 | 13 |
AMS_Tiago's first D1 appearance began from pole but ended in 15th, while five drivers were classified as non-finishers. MagMagnussen felt he had let a chance to win escape; a three-second penalty ultimately left the Aston Martin driver fourth, 3.356 seconds from victory.
Erion gains 22 places in two runner-up finishes
Erion._ has now finished second in consecutive rounds from a combined 26th on the grid. His Japan recovery began after his qualifying session ended on the start-finish straight, leaving him 15th. The McLaren driver then climbed 13 places in the race, following an 11th-to-second recovery in Baku, without yet taking a first IMS win.
gennaro1173's third place was also important for Red Bull's BOTT fight. Promoted from D2 after Wadz51 left the D1 seat, he scored 19 points in his first race after the move and cut Aston Martin's lead from seven points to three before D0 began.
Wadz51 was back in a Red Bull as a reserve after resigning from the full-time seat, but failed to finish. Gennaro had arrived from the division below and finished on the podium. Red Bull could hardly have received a clearer demonstration that the promoted driver was the better option.
A bad night becomes a useful championship result
Ussh's seventh place brought only nine points, but PolyTromp's absence meant there was no title rival present to exploit the championship leader's difficult evening. The Cadillac driver now leads 171-124.
Williams also doubled its D1 constructors' cushion from 29 points to 57. HPJones's 30-point win and Webbah87's seven points moved the team to 260, while Cadillac reached 203.
Webbah87 had fallen to 15th after a lap-one chain reaction before recovering to eighth. His unstable connection made cars appear to stutter relative to one another, and several drivers identified it as a factor in the confusion at the start.
Four submitted incidents could change the lower top 10
Four D1 incidents have been submitted. None affects the provisional podium, although two requests to remove penalties from Kaтю́ша Snowstorm could change positions seven through 10.
HPJones won the race and Erion._ charged from 15th to second, but Ussh still increased his championship lead from 38 points to 47 despite finishing seventh. PolyTromp may not get many better chances to close the gap.
