Formula 1 is a simple sport, 20 man race for 305 kilometres, and in the end Verstappen wins. This paraphrase of Gary Lineker’s famous quote seems all too applicable on Formula 1 these days. Even when there is an interesting race because the high tyre wear, the Dutchman makes winning a Grand Prix look like a walk in the park.
Saturday’s qualifying resulted 27th front row for Red Bull Racing, so beforehand another walk in the park for Max Verstappen was anticipated. But with a 40°C track temperature, a lot warmer than during practice, tyre wear would be the big question mark for today’s race.
One of the surprises was qualifying came from Sergio Perez in his RB20. The Mexican driver has been quick all weekend at Suzuka, and he just missed out on pole in Q3 by 0.066s. On his final run in the last segment of qualifying, the 34-year-old showed incredible committment through the middle sector as he…
The championship leader took his third pole in a row at Suzuka by topping every single qualifying segment. Not only it was a great weekend for Verstappen, it was an overall very impressive display from both Red Bull drivers at the home track of their current engine provider Honda. “I think around here, at Suzuka,…
Carlos Sainz played down Ferrari’s pace having secured a P4 start during qualifying, with the Spaniard claiming both Red Bull and McLaren have cars better suited to the circuit characteristics of Suzuka. Speaking after a hard fought Japanese Grand Prix qualifying hour, with the top 8 separated by just over half a second, Ferrari’s Carlos…
Max Verstappen secured a fourth consecutive pole position of the season at the 2024 Japanese GP, beating his team-mate Sergio Perez by the slender margin of just six hundreths of a second, in what proved to be an excting final part of qualifying at Suzuka. Q1 Q1 began in cloudy conditions at the Suzuka circuit….
On a cloudy morning at Suzuka, the drivers quickly took to the track after FP2 was basically written off because of the weather. A 1:30.265 from Max Verstappen kicked things off in FP3 on the mediums, 0.188s ahead of Sergio Perez. The Haas of Kevin Magnussen got it wrong at the hairpin, losing the rear…
Red Bull Chief Engineer Paul Monaghan has detailed the reason for Max Verstappen’s surprising retirement at the Australian Grand Prix. The Dutch driver had been on a remarkable run of 43 consecutive points finishes, dating back to early 2022. Ironically, his last DNF had been at Albert Park early in that campaign. By lap 3…
Normal service resumed at Suzuka on Friday as Max Verstappen topped FP1. With FP2 held in mixed conditions, only the first session gave us a read on how things might pan out in qualifying on Saturday afternoon. The three-time World Champion topped the times by 0.181s from teammate Sergio Perez. Speaking after practice, Verstappen explained…
At RB F1, Ayumu Iwasa replaced Daniel Ricciardo in first practice as the Faenza-based team used this session as an opportunity to tick off one of the two where a rookie must be run in FP1 during the season. The Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton posted the first time on a 1:32.945, before Lando Norris beat…
