Who impressed under the radar in Japan

Suzuka's first sector is one of Formula 1's greatest challenges. Tony Dodgins took a closer look at each driver's performance through there and was particularly impressed by two drivers that had never been to the track prior to last weekend

The trip to Japan can be tiring and the logistics a bit more complex but, overall, any journey that has Suzuka at the end of it is a good one. It's a strange paradox of F1 travel that the more appealing a destination, the easier it is to get in. If you're going to Australia, for example, you buy a 10-year visa for twenty quid - job done. You do it electronically via the internet and print your receipt.

Then there's China. You visit a regional embassy during limited hours and when your passport runs out of unstamped pages the Chinese refuse to stick their visa on a page with the bottom corner polluted a tiny fraction by a barely discernible stamp from Canadian immigration. If, as normal when you're constantly travelling, you've arranged to attend the embassy on the one day it's open before your flight leaves, you have a problem.

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