Scuderia Ferrari Monegasque driver Charles Leclerc finished third for the Maranello team in a soaking wet Japanese Grand Prix at the Suzuka circuit, while his teammate Carlos Sainz was forced to retire after just one lap, due to a crash caused by the difficult conditions.
The race started on time, at 2pm local, but was stopped on lap 2 after the Spaniard hit the barrier at turn 12, with the rain intensifying. The Grand Prix was finally restarted a couple of hours later, with everyone on full wets, for what was effectively a 28 lap sprint race. After a few laps, Latifi and Vettel were the first to switch to Intermediates, which proved must faster in the conditions, which determined Ferrari and Red Bull to immediately call Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen in for new Intermediate tyres.
With his F1-75 working very well, the Monegasque set about pursuing his Dutch rival and for the first four laps was faster than the RB18 of Max Verstappen, even my half of second at one point. However, he gradually started to lose pace as he began to suffer with tyre graining and had to defend from Sergio Perez who was closing in on him. Charles Leclerc took the flag in second place on track, but moments before that, he had cut the final chicane leading onto the start-finish straight, for which he was given a five second penalty, that dropped him to third.
After the race, the degradation issues of the F1-75 car was very clear by comparing the Intermediate tyres of Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen at the end of the Japanese Grand Prix, as can be seen in the image bellow:
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