Red Bull ended McLaren’s winning streak as Max Verstappen held off Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri to win at Suzuka, but it remains to be seen whether it was a performance they can repeat
Max Verstappen’s race engineer called it “perfection” as he congratulated the Dutchman for his Suzuka victory. He wasn’t wrong – Verstappen didn’t place a wheel wrong in either qualifying or the race and his reward was a first win since the Qatar Grand Prix on December 1 last year.
It was his fourth win in a row at the Japanese Grand Prix and the perfect way to pay tribute to engine suppliers Honda at their home race in the final year of their Red Bull partnership. The victory also means he is just one point behind championship leader Lando Norris, who finished second ahead of McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri.
Are Verstappen and Red Bull suddenly title contenders now after their sluggish start? Norris insists he never counted the Dutchman out anyway. He said: “I get a lot of questions asking if am I surprised when Max does a day like yesterday or today.
“I guess people expect me to say yes but I don’t think there is a reason to be. I don’t need anyone to tell me what Max is capable of doing. Some days he will come out on top and some days I will.
“Red Bull seem to maybe have caught up a little bit, but they have not been that bad the whole season. This weekend he has been very good. I expect him to be challenging us every weekend.”
Verstappen is not so sure about that. “I don’t think so,” was his reply when asked if he believes he can continue to compete with Norris. “Today, we take it. It was very hard to pass around here. Bahrain – completely different track, very tough on tyres, tyres overheating as well.
“We still have work to do, but it does show that if we really nail everything, we can be up there. We want to be better than just sometimes being up there, so we just keep working hard and just see where we can be at in Bahrain.”
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Overtaking was at a premium as low tyre degradation and only one DRS zone on the start-finish straight made it much easier to defend. The top six all finished in exactly the same place as they started, Charles Leclerc fourth ahead of the two Mercedes drivers George Russell and Kimi Antonelli.
Russell has said many times already this year that he anticipates a stroll to the title for McLaren and has predicted Norris or Piastri to get back to winning ways over the rest of this triple header of races. He said: “I don’t think we’ve seen the best of McLaren yet – it’s been three cold races, we’ve been wearing jackets here and last week.
“I think when we go to Bahrain in 35 degree heat and Saudi in 36 degrees, I think that’s where we’re going to see those guys excel. We know we’ve always been strong in the cooler conditions, so I have my feet on the ground. It’s been a great first few races but there are 21 to go! It’s early days.”
Lewis Hamilton was sluggish again as he rose one place from his grid slot to finish seventh, but is optimistic for Bahrain having found “something underperforming” on his car that Ferrari plan to fix. Isack Hadjar was the highest-finishing rookie in eighth ahead of Alex Albon and British teenager Oliver Bearman rounding off the top 10.
