How Verstappen’s crushing Japanese GP win showed Singapore was a blip

Normal service officially resumed at Suzuka, and a minor stumble at the line simply delayed Red Bull’s collection of its sixth Formula 1 constructors’ championship. Singapore? Merely a blip; Max Verstappen’s usual order of a leisurely Sunday afternoon cruise to victory was made almost inevitable following his demolition job of the rest of the field in qualifying.

The team’s all-conquering RB19 proved a tricky customer at Marina Bay a week prior, but the nature of the fast and flowing Suzuka circuit ensured that it was back to full strength. It was putty in the hands of Verstappen, and even Lewis Hamilton was complimentary of the car ahead of the weekend – suggesting that he was looking forward to watching the Dutchman’s laps after the Japanese Grand Prix. The car had everything from speed, compliance and predictability: a racing driver’s holy trifecta.

Despite joining Verstappen on the front row for the race through Oscar Piastri, McLaren didn’t think it had much of a chance of providing a challenge beyond the opening corners. Lando Norris jokingly suggested that Piastri should “emulate Ayrton Senna” into Turn 1 if McLaren was to have a chance of winning, in deference to the Brazilian’s infamous clash with Alain Prost at the same turn in 1990.

Amusingly, Piastri found himself in what he later described as the “perfect” position if he was ever going to pull that move off. Verstappen’s start was marginally slower to the two McLarens, who swarmed him on the run into the first corner. Piastri had the inside line and Norris positioned himself on the outside, which forced Verstappen into making a choice of where to defend ahead of the Esses. He guessed right to cover off Piastri, and had to hope that Norris ran his MCL60 out too wide to ensure Turn 2 remained within his grasp.

Despite Norris’s good speed into the opening corner, it seldom puts a driver on the racing line for Turn 2. Verstappen held that line, finding a much greater surplus of grip which gave him the traction he needed to preserve his advantage over the Briton.

"I saw in the right mirror that Oscar had a little bit of a jump on me, but then at the same time I saw my left mirror that Lando had a real jump on me,” Verstappen recounted. "I tried to close off Oscar but he was still there, and then I saw on the left side Lando coming with a lot more speed. He then moved a bit to the right and I was like, 'I can't go more to the right!'. So I was trying to get it straightened and luckily, nothing happened.

Verstappen successfully defended from both McLarens into the first corner as carnage developed behind

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

"It all got quite close, but that's racing, that's how it goes at the start. We had a good battle also into Turn 1 and Turn 2. But I was lucky, I think, that there was a bit more grip in Turn 2, just on the normal line instead of trying to go around the outside."

Norris nonetheless used that outside line to skip ahead of Piastri, although Verstappen had already bolted having once again demonstrated his colossal pace advantage through the opening sector that he had flaunted throughout the weekend. There was only one more opportunity that McLaren could theoretically use to mount an audacious bid for the lead, however, owing to debris on the start/finish straight following a midfield skirmish.

The clean-up operation invoked the appearance of the safety car, as Esteban Ocon showed Valtteri Bottas into the path of Alex Albon – which pitched the Williams onto its two left-hand wheels for a brief moment amid a cascade of carbon fibre fragments. But, as is customary, Verstappen had the restart licked.

"I played padel with Max on Wednesday and he was properly fired up. He said ‘I want to win the race by 20 seconds’. And in fairness, he came within 0.7s of achieving that" Christian Horner

He compressed the field up to the Casio Triangle, took the chicane as normal, and booted the throttle to wheel away from Norris with no recourse. He eased out of DRS range to put almost two seconds over the McLaren in the following two laps, as he attempted to gather a lead that would be preserved during the pitstop phases.

The high degradation present over the Suzuka weekend could be partly attributed to three things: the abrasive track surface, the high-energy corners and the high track temperatures. The F1 paddock carried some of the weather from Singapore with it, and the road surface soaked in the heat to lightly sauté the tyres. Two-stop strategies were expected, and the teams had an eye on what their rivals were saving from practice to make their predictions.

It became evident as early as Friday that Verstappen was going to run two sets of mediums in the race, while the likes of McLaren and Mercedes had opted for a double-hard strategy to keep overall degradation in check. Red Bull, however, could pretty much do as it pleased given its deft touch on its tyre life over the season so far.

"I could really look after the tyres well, the degradation was quite in control," Verstappen revealed in the post-race press conference. "Of course, I knew that our strategy was going to be a little bit different with the medium tyres compared to two times hard for some others. But it was still okay. I think the balance was still quite good, with traction and stuff for the whole stint. Honestly, I had no real issues throughout the race, and I think that just sums up the weekend as well."

Verstappen stated he had no issues during the race as he confidently pulled away from the McLarens behind

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Verstappen’s lead post-safety car was growing at around half a second per lap to keep Norris handily under control, and his Red Bull team-mate's misfortune arguably helped to double an advantage that stood at just under five seconds. Sergio Perez had been dumped down the order by an early pitstop to repair his front wing after a lap 1 clash with Hamilton, and his impatience to climb back up the order resulted in a Turn 11 hairpin contretemps with Kevin Magnussen.

Stamping on the brakes from some way back, Perez unceremoniously dive bombed the Dane and pitched the Haas into a spin. It was almost a carbon copy of his Singapore assault on Alex Albon, and smacked of little more than desperation.

The debris produced the need for a virtual safety car, which Piastri used to his advantage to make his first stop for the hard tyre. In the meantime, Perez’s Red Bull was wounded and trundling around the circuit which meant Norris caught him but, under VSC conditions, was unsure if he was allowed to pass the slow-moving #11 car without earning the ire of the stewards.

"I don't know what happened, I mean, he must have had a problem, right?" Norris reflected on his brief hold-up from the beleaguered Perez. "But you can’t overtake under the VSC - I don't know if he had a problem, whether he was just backing me up. I didn't know and I couldn't take the risk of just overtaking him.

"He was going so slow and then when we get the flashing dash for VSC ending, he went into first gear; I was on the outside of him because he was going so slow and then he almost crashed into me. I just got so confused. I didn't know what I could do..."

Norris estimated that he lost 10 seconds to Verstappen, although by the time the virtual safety car had shaken out it was just over half that, as the gap had stretched from 5.3s pre-VSC to 9.9s after. In reflection, he reckoned that the growth in his arrears hadn’t "changed the world", but he’d hoped that he would have been able to nail the end of the VSC and perhaps place Verstappen under a modicum of extra pressure.

Instead, Verstappen had effectively doubled the advantage by the time he’d come in to make his first stop for that second set of medium tyres. With that gap and having pitted first between the two, it covered off any chance that Norris could reel the gap back in with an undercut attempt.

After his stop, the two-time champion’s relentless consistency was astounding. Every lap set between his out-lap and the in-lap for his middle stint sat within a 0.602s bracket; it was as if he had entered a state of being in which he could repeat the same lap on every tour of one of the world’s most challenging circuits. His team had given him a target that would ensure he preserved the tyres enough to make the stint work, and he complied with very few problems.

After sustaining front wing damage in opening lap contact with Hamilton, Perez had another race to forget

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Verstappen's hard tyre stint at the end had much greater variance, partly because he set a time that ultimately became the fastest lap, and had to contend with traffic towards the end. Not that it particularly mattered, as his lead continued to grow incrementally over the final third of the race. There was no misfortune or force majeure to derail the rebound after Singapore had been so abject, although the Dutch driver may consider just missing out on his targeted winning margin as the tiniest of blemishes.

"I played padel with Max on Wednesday and he was properly fired up,” revealed Red Bull boss Christian Horner. "He made it clear, he said ‘I want to win the race by 20 seconds’. And in fairness, he came within 0.7s of achieving that. So had it not been for a blue flag at the end there...

"You could tell from the very first lap in FP1 where on the hard tyre, he was 1.8 seconds quicker than the rest of the field on medium or soft tyres at that point. He was totally focused on this event. It's a circuit that he loves and enjoys. And I think it's one of the ultimate driver circuits as a test around here. It was an outstanding performance."

"It probably wasn't my strongest Sunday, so from that side there’s things I want to work on. I just wasn't quick enough at certain points of the race" Oscar Piastri

His efforts to win and claim the fastest lap also sealed Red Bull’s sixth constructors’ victory, as the team only had to outscore Mercedes to be sure of chalking off its second consecutive teams’ title. Horner paid tribute to his team, stating that its latest crown was "testimony to all the men and women in the team that have worked tirelessly to produce a car as competitive as we've had".

With Verstappen well out of the picture after the first round of stops, Norris then faced a threat from the VSC-stopping Piastri. The Australian had been able to make use of the reduced time loss in his stop to undercut Norris and reclaim second, albeit with about four laps offset between their respective sets of hard Pirellis, as Piastri stopped on lap 13 and Norris was called in on lap 17.

Although the 2021 Formula 2 champion had proven his worth in qualifying through his higher grid slot, Norris still retains an upper hand in the race pace stakes. This became evident when the Briton started to reel in Piastri at a not-insignificant rate of knots having dropped just over four seconds behind through his team-mate's undercut strategy.

Over the radio, Norris was angling for a swap of position between the two and bemoaned that the race would be “worse” should McLaren’s pitwall fail to react. The switch was eventually green lit on lap 27, and Norris moved past Piastri into the first corner to resume his runner-up position. Norris was not attempting to give chase to Verstappen – that ship had long since sailed – but attempting to cover any threat of a challenge from the Ferraris and Mercedes that were battling over a potential fourth place.

Leclerc's pace kept the McLaren pair wary of fighting too hard for position

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

In terms of sheer pace, Charles Leclerc was their most likely challenger for a podium, as the Monegasque was freely making use of the undercuts in his two stops to draw closer to Norris and Piastri. Ferrari had joined Red Bull in opting for the double-medium stints, a brave effort given its inconsistencies with regards to tyre preservation. This shortened Leclerc’s opening two stints to make the undercuts possible, although would ultimately come at a cost later as he was unable to retain his tenuous grasp on the Woking team’s coat-tails.

Further strategic variation was injected into the Ferrari-Mercedes battle courtesy of George Russell, who also posed a sporadic problem for McLaren in between stints. Although having suggested that the race was more likely to be a three-stopper than a one-stop strategy after qualifying, Russell called upon his team to try and make the latter of the two work out. It was a somewhat audacious request given the degradation prevalent throughout the weekend, but the Mercedes driver somehow managed to make it to the end.

Following the McLaren drivers’ stops, Russell became an obstacle in their aspirations to secure a first double podium for the team since its Monza 2021 win. Norris did not find his countryman’s defence too much trouble, but Piastri had to wrestle with the Norfolk native for a more prolonged period – which proved to be something of a time sink. Leclerc was inching closer to the back of them, which piled the pressure on Piastri to make his move.

An attempt at the Casio Triangle at the end of the 41st tour yielded nothing in terms of position, but Russell couldn’t get as much drive out of the corner on his ailing tyres compared to the McLaren. Piastri made the move at Turn 1 and, thankfully for his own podium ambitions, Leclerc then needed another three laps to get past Russell himself. The Ferrari driver was over three seconds behind the rookie driver once Russell had been dispatched, all but calling the remaining podium positions in McLaren’s favour – this being Piastri’s first trip to the F1 grand prix rostrum.

"I think for myself, it probably wasn't my strongest Sunday, so from that side there’s things I want to work on," Piastri divulged modestly. "I just wasn't quick enough at certain points of the race.

"These high-deg races are probably the biggest thing I need to try and work on at the moment. I think it's still quite fresh for me; obviously, in all the junior racing before this there's no races like this, so the only way you can learn from it is by just doing the races. Had I had this race again, I would have done a bit different. But that's all part of the learning."

Leclerc ultimately preserved fourth, having elected not to give any further chase to the McLarens and preserve a result that brings the Scuderia a step closer to Mercedes in the constructors’ championship. Russell, meanwhile, dropped to seventh by the end amid team orders that involved a store-brand imitation of Carlos Sainz’s Singapore DRS tricks.

Sainz was wise to Mercedes trying to repeat his DRS trick from Singapore

Photo by: Jake Grant / Motorsport Images

With Russell ahead, Hamilton was knocking on the door of his younger team-mate and was granted a free pass by Mercedes as Sainz was catching them rapidly. Russell suggested that they hold station until the last lap, and try to tow Hamilton to avoid Sainz’s efforts with DRS – a role reversal from a week earlier. Mercedes opted for a halfway house, switching places and asking Hamilton to give Russell a DRS pull – but Sainz was unsurprisingly wise to it and cleared Russell to claim sixth.

"I was laughing in the car because I could see Lewis backing off in 130R to give the DRS to George," Sainz explained. "And I was like, I need to make sure I attack George into the chicane. If I don't throw him offline, it's going to be impossible to pass them."

It looks increasingly impossible that Verstappen will be passed at the top of the championship standings too. With 180 points available and Verstappen now 177 clear of team-mate Perez, just three points from Qatar would be enough to clinch the title. That’ll likely come in the sprint race, where he only needs to finish fifth.

In two weeks, Verstappen will become F1’s sixth three-time champion – joining Jack Brabham, Jackie Stewart, Niki Lauda, Nelson Piquet and Ayrton Senna on that list of honours. That’s some truly exalted company, but the achievements he’s garnered already place him in the pantheon of F1’s greats. Another title will be merely the icing on the cake.

Verstappen is within touching distance of being a three-time F1 world champion

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images