Max Verstappen winning the 2018 Austrian Grand Prix.

Sophia Crothall

The 2024 Japanese Grand Prix saw Red Bull dominating the grid once again, with a one-two finish at Suzuka. 

Max Verstappen finished the race 12 seconds ahead of his teammate Sergio Perez, followed by Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz.

Free Practice

Max Verstappen set the fastest time in FP1 on Friday at Suzuka, lapping in 1m30.056s, followed by teammate Sergio Perez. 

Williams almost suffered great damage again, when Logan Sargeant lost control of his car at the final element of The Esses, known as the Dunlop Curve, slamming into the tyre wall. 

Sargeant came out unharmed but was driving the repaired chassis that teammate Alex Albon crashed in Melbourne. 

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Following the red flag, cars were allowed back out on track which led Verstappen to set his time.

Rain was predicted for the afternoon at Suzuka meaning teams were keen to get a run on soft tyres. Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc ended the session in sixth, behind Lewis Hamilton. 

In FP2, it was McLaren’s Oscar Piastri who set the quickest lap time of 1m34.725s 

Showers caused a frustrating session for the drivers, with many not running at all. Both Hamilton and Ricciardo, who missed FP1 in favour of Red Bull’s junior Ayumu Iwasa, emerged after 15 minutes, returning to the pits shortly after. 

“Showers caused a frustrating session for the drivers, with many not running at all.”

During FP3 on Saturday, Verstappen ended the session as the fastest driver, once again ahead of his team-mate. He set a time of 1m29.563s. 

Verstappen led by two and a half tenths at the chequered flag. 

Mercedes’ George Russell and Lewis Hamilton finished third and fourth respectively, with Fernando Alonso placing fifth. Both Mercedes drivers spoke positively about the pace of the W15 seen in FP1. 

No rain impacted the session this time, allowing all teams to complete their necessary runs. 

During the session, Haas’ Kevin Magnussen suffered a spin, whilst Ricciardo lost the rear in turn two, with the RB doing a 360-degree turn. 

Qualifying 

Verstappen took pole position, followed by Perez and McLaren’s Lando Norris following the one-hour qualifying session. 

During Q1, Verstappen finished with a time of 1m28.866s, four tenths quicker than Alonso, Perez and Leclerc, and over half a second faster than everyone else. 

Lance Stroll (Aston Martin), Pierre Gasly (Alpine), Magnussen, Sargeant and Zhou Guanyu (Sauber) all fell at the first hurdle.

During Q2, Verstappen finished first, 0.012s faster than Perez. 

Ricciardo, Nico Hulkenburg (Haas), Valterri Bottas (Sauber), Albon and Esteban Ocon (Alpine), were all kicked out. 

In Q3, Verstappen secured pole position for the race. Perez joined his teammate on the front row by securing second place, with Norris in third. 

Sainz finished fourth, followed by Alonso in fifth, Piastri in sixth, Hamilton in seventh, Leclerc in eighth, Russell ninth and Yuki Tsunoda rounding out the top ten. 

Race Day at Suzuka

Following his DNF in Melbourne, Verstappen bounced back to secure another first place podium by winning the Japanese Grand Prix. It also saw the return of a Red Bull one-two finish, and another podium for Ferrari, with Sainz finishing third. 

Verstappen led the way from start to finish, with a variety of tyre strategies, and a first lap incident involving Ricciardo and Albon. 

This placed Verstappen 8 points clear of Perez in the Driver’s Championship rankings.

Thanks to his victory at Suzuka, Verstappen reached another milestone, passing the 3000-lap mark in the lead. 

This leaves him behind Lewis Hamilton, Michael Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel, with Hamilton’s record standing at 5455. 

Commenting on the race, Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff said: “No-one is going to catch Max this year.

“His driving and the car are just spectacular. You can see it by the way he manages the tyres. The season is [about] best of the rest. That is the fight that is on.”

Speaking on the race himself, Verstappen shared: “Very nice, everything went really well.

“Pit stops, the strategy, it couldn’t have been any better.” 

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Finally, Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, who is still without a seat for next season, said he was “very happy” with his podium result at Suzuka. 

“I had a good race to be honest.

“Very happy because it was quite tough out there with the degradation, but then suddenly the clouds came, the degradation went a lot lower, and suddenly I thought that maybe one-stop was quicker and we were on the two.

“I had to overtake a lot of cars out there today, and yeah, overtaking was tricky. Always at Suzuka you really have to nail the last chicane to get a good run into Turn 1. I could finish my moves but it was tough out there.”

Formula 1 returns on Friday 19th April in China, with the first sprint race of the season taking place on Saturday 20th. 

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Featured image courtesy of pedrik via Flickr. No changes have been made to this image. Image license found here.

Sophia is a MA Cultural and Creative Industries graduate from Cardiff University, and a BSc Criminology graduate from the University of Bristol. She has experience writing for publications such as GPBlog and Metro. Sophia runs her own F1 Tik Tok account: @sophiacrothallf1

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