Verstappen Celebrates Second Title with Suzuka Victory: “To win here in Japan is really special”

Max Verstappen claimed his second world title in the FIA Formula 1 World Championship as he won a shortened down Japanese Grand Prix due to rain and wet conditions on track to secure the 2022 crown with four races remaining.

Verstappen began the day at the Suzuka International Racing Course on pole position and looking confident that he could walk away with his second title in the sport by the end of the race. However, as the race got underway, the Dutchman had to cover off Charles Leclerc who got away better than his rival at the start. The Monegasque driver just about lead the race down into turn one, but Verstappen showed why he is a two time world champion, making an impressive move around the outside of the Scuderia Ferrari driver into turn one.

Shortly after this, the red flag was brought out after Carlos Sainz Jr. crashed out and Alexander Albon retired. For the next hour and twenty minutes, everyone at Suzuka as well as the Formula 1 fans around the world were waiting to see if the race would get underway again as conditions started to worsen. Finally, with fourty minutes left on the race clock, the drivers were back out on track and racing again on the wet tyres. As conditions started to improve, it was quite apparent that it was time to switch to the intermediates, and Verstappen judged the switch to perfection. From then on, he was to lead the way and cruised to his twelfth win of the season.

After the twenty-eight lap race, there was some confusion around whether Verstappen had won the title or not. Leclerc had finished second with the Dutchman’s team-mate Sergio Pérez finishing in third. However, on the last lap of the race, Leclerc went of the track and was deemed to have come back onto it in an unsafe fashion and gaining an advantage and in doing so, gave the Ferrari man a five second time penalty which dropped him down to third place behind the Mexican and giving Verstappen this years world title.

After the race, Verstappen reflected on an action packed race which saw him leave Japan as a back-to- back world champion.

“This is crazy! To win here in Japan is really special, I feel really proud that we could do it here. When I crossed the line, I didn’t know that I was World Champion, there was a lot of confusion but I thought it was quite funny. The first Championship was very emotional and this time it feels very different, it feels even more beautiful because of the season we’ve had.”

“The teamwork has been unreal, we kept on pushing, kept on believing and kept on improving the car. As a Team we’ve made very few mistakes, you can’t be perfect but for most of the races we were close to it.”

The Dutchman also congratulated everyone at Honda and Oracle Red Bull Racing on their hard work after a fantastic season as the focus is now on winning the Constructor’s Championship at the next race in Austin.

“Working together with Honda has been incredible and of course a lot of my thanks goes out to the Team here at track, back at the factory and everyone that’s been
contributing with the Red Bull Powertrains division. Everyone has been working flat out and has a huge amount of motivation. Checo has been an incredible teammate and now the full focus is on the Constructors Championship. Let’s see what we can do in Austin.”