Max Verstappen cruised to his third victory of 2024 in Sunday’s Japanese Grand Prix, cementing his place as Formula 1’s third-most-winning driver with a career tally of 57.
Only Lewis Hamilton (103) and Michael Schumacher (91) have won more races than Red Bull driver, who was forced to overcome two starts following a Lap 1 red flag for a crash between RB’s Daniel Ricciardo and Williams’s Alex Albon.
“Today was simply lovely, and I really enjoyed the race,” said the three-time World Champion. “We stayed out of trouble in the first lap, and from there, we tried to look after the tyres as much as possible.
“We made the right calls before we went into qualifying, which definitely helped today, and it’s very nice to come back and win after Australia.
“The car just got better throughout the race, and although it took a few laps before I got a nice rhythm, on the second stint, the car really came alive. I could push where I needed to and I could look after my tyres well, so the race went really nicely.
“It was a great team result the whole weekend, and it was brilliant to score a one-two here—our third of the season. Suzuka is always a great track to race at, and overall, I’m really happy about the performance today.”
Sergio Perez followed his teammate home for the third time this season, marking the first occasion in the sport’s history where the opening four Grand Prix has finished with a manufacturer one-two, following Ferrari’s success in Melbourne.
Perez finished 12.5 seconds behind his teammate, who pulled clear off the line to dominate proceedings, and 8.3 seconds ahead of Australian Grand Prix winner Carlos Sainz, who ran a two-stop strategy to overcome his one-stopping teammate Charles Leclerc late in proceedings.
“It was a good day for the team,” said Perez. “We had good pace today, we just struggled with the degradation initially and didn’t get enough out of the medium due to the balance and track temperature. We suffered a little on the first stint, it compromised our race a little too much and with Lando pitting early.
“The second stint was better, but we had to get through a lot of traffic and that made our life a lot harder. On the hard, we were back to our best, but things were a little out of sync by then.
“What is positive and an improvement is that when we have issues like on the first stint, we are able to solve them during the race, which is something we lacked last year.
“We’re in a good place and performing at a very nice level, we just need to keep progressing. My confidence is coming back and the momentum should be with me for the coming races, if I’m able to have such a consistent weekend in Suzuka it can only be positive moving forward.”
Leclerc was fourth home, three seconds ahead of McLaren’s Lando Norris, who put nearly 15 seconds on sixth-placed Fernando Alonso.
Alonso had McLaren’s Oscar Piastri behind him towards the end of the race. He managed his pace to keep the McLaren in DRS range, keeping a faster Mercedes of George Russell at bay and out of reach of his Aston Martin.
A mistake at the exit of the chicane for Piastri on the penultimate lap gave Russell the position at Turn 1 on the final lap.
With the battle unfolding ahead, Lewis Hamilton made quick ground on his teammates Piastri and Alonso but ran out of laps to complete a pass and settled for ninth.
A delighted Yuki Tsunoda completed the points at his home Grand Prix.
“I’m feeling relieved,” said RB’s sole finisher. “After I lost some positions on the first start, I felt a little disappointment for sure, but at the same time, I just focused on the second start. I had a good one and was able to make up a few positions.
“One of the big highlights was the pitstop. Our mechanics did a fantastic job, it was such a fast pitstop that allowed us to overtake two cars and that’s insane! Without that, it would’ve been a lot more difficult to score points today, so the team deserves big credit. So do the Japanese fans, they are great!
“Obviously, finally being able to score points in front of my home fans makes me a very happy guy.
“I felt confident today. I knew our straight-line speed isn’t that competitive compared to other cars, but at the same time, we know we had a lot of downforce and the only chance we had was through the esses, normally affected by downforce. It allowed me a couple good overtakes and I definitely enjoyed that.
“In terms of tyre management, I feel like my driving in today’s race was probably my best. I started my career here and to be able to score points here is extremely special.
“I don’t feel like I scored P10 today, but P1 – it’s a great feeling.”
An under pressure Ricciardo’s race lasted just three corners, with the Australian in the middle of a three-wide battle between himself, Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll and Albon.
Albon had attempted to go around the outside at the corner, with Ricciardo’s attention on Stroll on the inside. He ran wide and into the Williams, sending both cars off and into the tyre barriers at speed. A lengthy delay was required for barrier repairs and car removal.
“After yesterday, where we made some steps in the right direction, I was really excited to come racing today to have a good day,” Ricciardo said after the race.
“In these cases, a Lap 1 incident is one of the worst things that could happen to a driver, especially as you don’t really have the chance to do anything after the massive buildup and energy used to be prepared for the race. It was a shame and an unfortunate one for all of us involved.
“It was a racing incident and, luckily, after some checks, both Alex and I are okay. The start of the race was really poor as Yuki and I were on medium tyres and we were struggling so much compared to the other cars on the soft compound.
“In Turn 2, it settled a little bit, but I still felt like I was sliding and then saw an Aston Martin on the outside of me. I was watching him, but when I was preparing to enter Turn 3, without using all the track as it was the first lap, Albon got alongside me and had a better exit from Turn 2.
“I didn’t see him and we touched. This is racing sometimes and is part of it; not really anyone to blame, there was just a huge difference in terms of grip out of there. I’m sorry for the team, but China is soon, so we’ll focus on that.”
Sauber’s Zhou Guanyu was the other Grand Prix retiree, stopping with a gearbox issue on Lap 13.
Formula 1 returns with the Chinese Grand Prix on April 21, which doubles as the first Sprint Race weekend of the season.
Header Image: Getty Images/ Red Bull Content Pool
