Formula 1 ®
Max breezes to another victory with Checo in second.
Max Verstappen returned to winning ways in style on Sunday dominating the Japanese Grand Prix ahead of Sergio Perez for a third Red Bull one-two finish from four Formula One season races.
Verstappen collected his 57th career victory in the home race of Red Bull’s engine partners Honda that was red-flagged for half an hour after a first-lap collision between Visa-RB’s Daniel Ricciardo and Esteban Ocon of Alpine.
Verstappen won 12 seconds from Perez Perez, and ahead of the Ferrari duo of Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc who had dominated two weeks ago in Austria where Verstappen had to retire with a brakes problem and Perez came fifth.
It was the third straight victory from pole in Suzuka for the triple world champion Verstappen who with it extended his championship lead again, with Perez in second 13 points adrift.
Max
“Today was simply lovely and I really enjoyed the race. 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 is 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 as we didn’t have many practices on the long runs, 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 brilliant to score a one two here: our third of the season. Suzuka is always a great track to go racing at and overall I am really happy about the performance today.”
Checo
“It was a good day for the Team. 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 are 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 am able to have such a consistent weekend in Suzuka it can only be positive moving forward.”
El Machismo
Fernando P6
“It was a great weekend for me with fifth position in Qualifying yesterday and sixth place in the race. It was one of my best for a while. I think we slightly outperformed our true position here this weekend, but we are executing our races very well this season and scoring good points for the team. Our plan for today worked well and a special thanks for the pitstops which were very impressive, so credit to all of the team for that. We still need to analyse our update package, so we’ll have a look at all our data from this weekend in Japan ahead of our return to Shanghai.”
Charles Leclerc
“Qualifying has always gone well for me, but for the past two races I’ve struggled,” he admitted. “We’ve had some difficulties putting the tyres in the right window on the out laps in qualifying.
“It’s something we never struggled with before,” he continued. “Normally it’s pretty good on the Saturday. I’m paying the price for this both in Australia and here, but the pace in the race is there.
“I feel like I’m stupid to say I was happy with my qualifying lap and then finish eighth, because I’m not like that,” Leclerc admitted. “The lap is good, but the grip of the tyre doesn’t give you what you expect.
“Whether it’s in Australia or here, race pace has not been a problem. It’s my qualifying pace, which is not something that I’ve not been very used to in my career to be working on my qualifying pace.”
Leclerc said that getting to the root of the problem was now his prime objective heading into the next race in China in two weeks time.
“It’s definitely my main focus going into Shanghai, to try and re-find the right window of the tyres and for me to put them more consistently inside that window, to make sure we can put it all together in China.” “There are these small differences in the out lap and I have to work on this,” he said. “We’ve got a week before Shanghai. I have to focus on it, but every time I’ve worked on something it’s improved quite quickly so I’m not too worried.”
Yuki
“I’m feeling relieved. 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, here and those who couldn’t make it to the track and watched it on TV, 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. A big thank you to everyone at Honda, Red Bull and Visa Cash App RB who have been involved and supported me throughout my journey. I don’t feel like I scored P10 today but P1 – it’s a great feeling.”