Sir Jackie's view – Japanese Grand Prix

"Like Singapore, the Japanese Grand Prix was, to say the least, unusual, because the first few laps were so aggressive. Looking at Lewis Hamilton's drive, this was not his finest hour. There's an old adage, 'You can't win the race in the first corner, but you can lose it.' And that's exactly what occurred. I suspect that Lewis, despite all his calmness outside of the cockpit, did not carry out his (and McLaren's) game plan to secure the drivers' and constructors' championships.

His approach in that first corner was slightly arrogant to other drivers. He braked far too late, ran deep into the run-off area, almost collided with Kimi Raikkonen, and was later punished by the stewards with a drive-through penalty. That was the Make it happen moment of the race: Lewis didn't make it happen for himself; he made it happen for everybody else by taking himself out of contention.

Weaving in and out of other cars, as Lewis did in the run to first corner, puts other drivers in the position of having to avoid his manoeuvre, and exposes Lewis to risk from their actions. If someone else locks a wheel or has a problem, both they and Lewis might pay the price. Very few drivers, even at the height of Formula One, stay clinically cool mentally at the start of a race. And the Japanese race demonstrated that Lewis is still very young, in only his second season, and although he comes across as very cool in interviews, he doesn't always have the same level of mind management when he's racing. 

Felipe Massa did not drive a great race either. He was penalised for his collision with Hamilton, and although he surely didn't intentionally cause the crash, it was the result of Massa taking liberties which were really asking for trouble.

Lewis Hamilton can still win the championship, but not if he drives the last two races the way he drove in Japan.

It was rather ironic that Fernando Alonso won. Last year, he joined McLaren as a double world champion, and perhaps having overly enjoyed the adulation that followed his second title. Maybe he was a little over-confident, knowing that he was joining one of the best two racing teams in the world. He must have felt sure that, with all McLaren's resources, he was going to win a third consecutive championship. But he was totally put off by Lewis Hamilton's raw speed and huge natural talent: the only time I've seen Alonso display weakness in his career so far.

Over the last two races, however, his experience and maturity have been obvious. Lewis, on the other hand (because he's privileged to be in one of the top teams at such a young age), has had to fast track his learning curve in order to deliver for all concerned. This can be very impressive, but it can cause havoc on other occasions.

Recently we've seen the race stewards handing out more and more penalties for using extra pieces of the racetrack. That's happening because there's no real penalty to the driver or his car for going over the edge of the racetrack. I'm not suggesting we go back the bad old days, and run-off areas are absolutely required. But at the moment, the surface of the run-offs is such that drivers are able to sustain a high speed and keep control of the car without a performance disadvantage. We don't want to see run-off areas that destroy the car's chassis, but with the technology that we have available to us today, it would be easy to design a run-off area that would not give drivers the liberty to use it and come out unscathed."