With the Suzuka race having been red flagged early on due to deteriorating conditions, and the event not resuming until there was just under 40 minutes of the three-hour maximum time limit remaining, it was never going to run to full distance.
But while teams had a rough idea of how long it would play out for, they were caught on the hop about the exact lap it would finish on.
Under F1’s two-hour time limit for a race’s duration, the rules are clear that once the two-hour cap has been reached, then the lead driver will have to complete one more lap after that before the chequered flag comes out.
Article 5.4 of F1’s sporting regulations states: “Should two hours elapse before the scheduled race distance is completed, the leader will be shown the end-of-session signal when he crosses the control line (the Line) at the end of the lap following the lap during which the two (2) hour period ended, provided this does not result in the scheduled number of laps being exceeded.”
So some teams had been anticipating that once the three hours were up, then there would be one more lap before the chequered flag was shown.
This was something Alpine had been anticipating, as Fernando Alonso had been on a charge following a later change for fresh inters and was poised to overhaul Sebastian Vettel.
Sporting director Alan Permane said his squad was taken aback by the race finishing one lap before it had expected.
“I think the race was stopped a lap earlier, the chequered flag was a lap earlier than it should have been,” he said. “I think when Max crossed the line, there was about five seconds still on the clock, and then they chequered flagged it the next lap. So I think, had the race gone to the distance we thought it was going to go to, he would have got Sebastian.”
Alpine were not alone though, as even Max Verstappen and Red Bull seemed to be taken by surprise that the chequered flag came out when it did.
Despite the race systems showing him winning and the flag being shown, Verstappen kept on pushing as he and his team were not sure if the race was over or not.
Having got as far as the Degner curves, Verstappen’s engineer Gianpiero Lambiase said: “OK, Max, there seems to be some confusion over whether the race is over. We do think it is. But just bring it home.”
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc also had to ask: “Is it over?”
Further back, McLaren asked Daniel Ricciardo to keep his speed up after the chequered flag as it wasn’t entirely sure what had happened.
Team boss Andreas Seidl said: “The chequered flag was out at the right time, but we saw that Max Verstappen was still going flat out after crossing the line, so I don't know exactly what happened there.
“We all agreed [on the pitwall] that that's the chequered flag. But because Max was still pushing, we initially said let's go on the safe side and keep pushing as well, because maybe there's something we have missed.”
In the end, the answer as to why the chequered flag came out earlier than some teams anticipated was because of the specific wording of the regulations.
While the two-hour limit in the rules mentioned the extra lap, the three-hour time limit for an event is a hard stop.
In discussing time limits, Article 5.b states: “Should the race be suspended (see Article 57) the length of the suspension will be added to this period up to a maximum total race time of three (3) hours.”
Without any reference to the need to do an extra lap, then the three-hour window means that as soon as the time limit is reached, then the chequered flag is put out for the race leader - which is exactly what happened.
However, just like the confusion over the handing out of points that marred the aftermath of the Japanese GP, this three-hour rule could well be tweaked over the winter to fall in line with how the two-hour limit is handled.
