By Linus O'Howell
Max Verstappen was back to dominating the field today as his win was enough to secure Red Bull Racing their second consecutive Constructors’ World Championship. McLaren also had a day to remember as Lando Norris finished second whilst Oscar Piastri rounded out the podium with his first trip to the rostrum in Formula 1.
The Most Notable Moments
Max Verstappen did superbly well going into Turn 1 to keep both Piastri and Norris behind, and whilst that was going on, chaos ensued behind the leaders as multiple cars collided with each other resulting in a Safety Car on the opening lap. This particually affected Valtteri Bottas, Alex Albon, Zhou Guanyu, Esteban Ocon, and Sergio Perez whilst Lewis Hamilton looked to have suffered a bit of floor damage in the process.
📸 Verstappen held the lead at the start despite the best efforts of both McLaren's. In the background, chaos ensued for multiple drivers.
When the race got back underway, Max drove off into the distance as Valtteri Bottas’ day got even worse as he was punted off by Logan Sargeant heading into Turn 11. Considering Bottas ran so far wide at Turn 11, I really can’t understand how Sargeant still managed to hit him.
Perez, who went off the track at Turn 13/14 a lap earlier, decided to send one on Kevin Magnussen into Turn 11 which resulted in Perez punting Magnussen round and receiving his second time penalty of the race (after a Safety Car infringement from earlier on).
📸 Perez had a nightmare race, and with penalties applied is now 5 license points away from a race ban.
Elsewhere, the two Mercedes were fighting one another quite hard including at one moment where Lewis Hamilton pushed George Russell off the track and besides Piastri benefiting a little bit from a Virtual Safety Car, as he had just entered the pits when the VSC had come out) not much else really happened at stage of the race.
Fernando Alonso got overtaken quite a few times as he was on an older set of tyres compared to the drivers around him whilst Mercedes pulled out a strategy that ultimately cost Russell a place to Carlos Sainz. I’m interested to see if that ends up effecting the fight for second in the Constructors’ Championship between Mercedes and Ferrari.
📸 Fernando Alonso finished 8th.
Later in the race, Red Bull sending Sergio Perez back onto the track after retiring from the race in order for him to serve his second time penalty (it was a bit odd).
Drivers who Impressed
There were two drivers that impressed me the most today and the first one is obviously for Max Verstappen. After a tough weekend in Singapore, Max restored the rightful order at Suzuka by winning by a country mile.
📸 Max celebrating his win.
The other driver that impressed me the most in today’s race was Lando Norris as I thought he drove another super race. I believe this is Lando’s fourth second place finish of the season which is very, very impressive (if you ask me). I was also impressed by Oscar Piastri who did a great job to score his first-ever Formula 1 podium whilst I also thought Charles Leclerc had a really good race that saw him maximise his result.
📸 Piastri takes his maiden podium in his rookie season no less!
Drivers who Struggled
There were two drivers that really didn’t impress me today and the first one is Logan Sargeant. In my opinion, Logan is driving shockingly bad right now and this weekend could well be the worst one he’s had all season. I still can't believe he punted Bottas off early on in the race!
📸 Sargeant's crash in qualifying was the catalyst for a poor race weekend.
The other driver that really didn’t impress me today is Sergio Perez and I find Checo to be such an annoying driver to watch because Sergio can be great at times, but other times he’s not and I think it’s fair to say that he was pretty abysmal today.
I also thought Kevin Magnussen didn’t have a particually good day as he finished last of the running cars.
Overall Race Results
1) Max Verstappen: Winner, 2); Lando Norris: +19.387, 3) Oscar Piastri: +36.494 4)Charles Leclerc: +43.998 5) Lewis Hamilton: +49.376, 6) Carlos Sainz: +50.221, 7) George Russell: +57.659, 8) Fernando Alonso: +74.725, 9) Esteban Ocon: +79.678 10) Pierre Gasly: +83.155, 11) Liam Lawson: +1 Lap, 12) Yuki Tsunoda: +1 Lap, 13) Zhou Guanyu: +1 Lap, 14) Nico Hulkenberg: +1 Lap, 15) Kevin Magnussen: + 1 Lap.
DNF: Alex Albon (Damage), Logan Sargeant (Damage), Lance Stroll (Wing failure), Sergio Perez (Damage), Valtteri Bottas (Damage).
📸 Formula Motorsport Limited, Red Bull Content Pool, Aston Martin F1, McLaren Racing.
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