Formula One Vault

This Grand Prix – Japanese

Hello, This Japanese Grand Prix told us one very important thing don’t count Red Bull out, after looking in trouble on Friday Max Verstappen dominated the race despite the opening lap drama, bounced back in style from their retirement in Australia with Verstappen and teammate Sergio Perez taking a one-two.

General News

Dorna Sports has officially announced that Liberty Media has finalised its purchase of the MotoGP World Championship. The deal worth £4 billion would give Liberty control also of World Super Bikes and Moto E, if approved by regulators in the UK, EU and US.

Liberty Media will acquire 86% of MotoGP, while MotoGP management will retain approximately 14% of their equity in the business. The equity consideration to sellers is expected to be comprised of approximately 65% cash, 21% shares of Series C Liberty Formula One common stock and 14% retained MotoGP management equity.

Liberty will however operate F1 (including F2, F3 and F1 Academy) and Moto GP, WSB and Moto E as two different companies.

Greg Maffei, Liberty Media President and CEO said “We are thrilled to expand our portfolio of leading live sports and entertainment assets with the acquisition of MotoGP. MotoGP is a global league with a loyal, enthusiastic fan base, captivating racing and a highly cash-flow generative financial profile.

“Carmelo and his management team have built a great sporting spectacle that we can expand to a wider global audience. The business has significant upside, and we intend to grow the sport for MotoGP fans, teams, commercial partners and our shareholders.”

The acquisition is expected to be completed by the end of the year, pending the receipt of clearances and approvals by competition and foreign investment law authorities in various jurisdictions. Liberty’s entry on the scene, it is understood that the entertainment giant intends to replicate, with nuances, the success obtained after taking over F1 in 2016.

Lastly time a deal was reach the EC that regulates the competition market led the American side to put the brakes on the agreement. In 2006 it forced CVC to sell MotoGP as it felt one company owning both series would not be good for competition within the European Union.

In 2022, the last year for which the accounts are publicly available in the Companies Register, Dorna Sports generated a turnover of 474.8 million euros, which was 33% more than the previous year (2021), which left a loss of 7.8 million euros, as a result of the echoes of the pandemic.

Weekend Recap

FP1 saw Max Verstappen lead a Red Bull one-two as he set a 30.056, just under two-tenths faster than Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez. Red Bull hoping to return to dominant ways having retired from the race in Melbourne. The red flag- brought out by Logan Sargeant’s crash. Carlos Sainz was third the Ferrari driver going three hundredths behind Perez and over a quarter of a second ahead of the Mercedes, the Melbourne winner hoping again he can take the fight to Red Bull.

FP2 saw limited running due to mixed conditions in an unrepresentative hour, with Oscar Piastri topping the times with a 34.725 on inters. He was half a second faster than Lewis Hamilton with the Mercedes three and a half seconds ahead of Charles Leclerc with the two RB’s completing the times with Yuki Tsunoda ahead of Daniel Ricciardo.

FP3 was topped by Verstappen with a 29.563 as he went a quarter of a second faster than Perez. George Russell and Lewis Hamilton slotted in for Mercedes in third and fourth respectively. Fernando Alonso was fifth, followed by the McLaren of Lando Norris, who was forced to abort a late fast lap after taking too much kerb.

Qualifying saw Verstappen beat Perez by six-hundredths of a second as Red Bull locked out the front row, as Perez produced one of his best qualifying laps for a long time to come up just short. Lando Norris was four-tenths off Verstappen, as Sainz couldn’t unlock the same performances as he did down under as he was six-tenths behind the Dutchman. But he did go just four thousandths faster than his fellow Spaniard Fernando Alonso.

Verstappen took a comfortable victory as he beat his Red Bull teammate Perez by twelve seconds. Despite the red flags, he converted both poles into a lead at Turn One where he was able to control the race dominated by differing tyre strategies through the top ten, his third win in three years at Suzuka.

Sainz finished third, twenty-one seconds behind Verstappen as he finished on the podium for the fourth time this season. The Spaniard overtook his one-stopping teammate Charles Leclerc by six seconds, Leclerc had used an unconventional one-stop strategy to come from eighth to fourth after he was surprisingly off the pace in qualifying

Red Bull

Max Verstappen says there’s “no need to panic” over the state of Red Bull’s power unit preparation for the 2026. The new regulations remove the expensive and complicated MGU-H system and instead put a bigger emphasis on electric power provided by the MGU-K.

Red Bull will also switch to its own in-house power unit which it is developing with Ford through its powertrains division, which CEO and team principal Christian Horner has called the team’s “biggest challenge” in its history. Despite rumours that the team are behind its rivals, Verstappen says there is “no need to panic” about it just yet.

he shrugged, “I mean, if I have to speculate about everything… I might be worried if I’m still alive tomorrow, right. So, I don’t really worry about that too much. Of course, I am in close contact with Christian about that and the people working there. Everyone’s working flat out, so there is no need to panic about that. It’s still not 2026.”

Verstappen did acknowledge Red Bull Powertrains faces a “very big task” to take on the existing manufacturers, which are also joined by newcomer Audi in 2026. With the chassis rules for 2026 yet to be finalised, work is ongoing to come up with lighter and lower-drag cars to mitigate concerns of cars slowing down dramatically on the straights as they run out of battery power.

While Red Bull locked out the front row, following qualifying Verstappen said he was concerned that the teams race pace wasn’t “as comfortable” as the opening three races. Verstappen was a tenth faster than teammate Perez in qualifying while Ferrari only managed fourth with Sainz and eighth with Leclerc.

When asked by Motorsport.com if he was surprised to see Ferrari fall from the pole fight it has engaged Red Bull in at the previous early 2024 rounds, Verstappen replied: “I cannot look inside the Ferrari garage [and say] why that is. But, it’s quite obvious that in the long run, they seem quite competitive. So, we’ll see tomorrow why that is or if it actually is the case like that.”

“From our side, I have some ideas of what we have to look into to make tomorrow better and that’s what we already changed [on car set-up] after FP3. So, hopefully, that will be better for tomorrow. Our race pace is still not too bad, but it’s not how I have been feeling in some of the races this year and last year. As comfortable, let’s say like that.”

The limited running in FP2 means that there was a bit of uncertainty going into the race given no long runs were really done, but what we expect is McLaren to be a threat to Red Bull as their long runs look decent. The question mark going into the race was because Ferrari had the edge in Melbourne, what would unfold in the race.

But Sainz insists Ferrari’s long runs – which Red Bull has been concerned about since FP1 on Friday morning – “are not better” when the caveats concerning engine modes and fuel loads are taken into account.

Sainz added, “It’s just, I think, probably we are a bit lighter. They always run really slow on Fridays, it always looks like we are gonna beat them on Sunday, and then they put twenty seconds on us.”

Verstappen did have concerns about the lack of sustained long-run simulations in preparation for the race – was largely washed out. Adding “The pace wasn’t what I would have liked. So there’s a bit of a question mark going into [the race] because looking at the long runs especially Ferrari, they looked very comfortable.”

“Maybe they were not so quick over one lap but they looked fast in the long runs so we’ll have to wait and see how that will evolve in the race. I’m just not very happy with myself and how my long run was so naturally, everyone else looks a little bit better.”

Despite his concerns, Red Bull took their third one-two with Verstappen finishing twelve and a half seconds ahead of Perez. He avoided all the various curve balls throughout the weekend to return to winning ways in another dominant drive as he looked faultless in the race.

He said ““It was very nice. I think the critical bit was of course the start, to stay ahead, and after that the car got better and better for me throughout the race. I don’t know if it had to do with the clouds coming in, but yeah, [it was] very nice. Everything just went really well, the pit stops went well, the strategy I think worked out well, so it couldn’t have been any better.”

Verstappen is still in this incredible run two retirements and only lost one race on track in the last year underlines how things are going well on track, he makes it look so easy at the moment and that’s on a weekend where we have had so many variables with limited running we had Friday.

Mercedes

Mercedes youngster Andrea Kimi Antonelli is set for his first test at the Red Bull Ring later this month. The Italian will drive the 2021 car during a two-day test, as one of serval outings with the team looking towards him being an option to replace Lewis Hamilton next year when he joins Ferrari.

Antonelli is under consideration for promotion to F1 pending on his progress this year, with Mercedes having the vacant seat of Lewis Hamilton to fill for the 2025 season and beyond.

It could also try to place the Italian at a customer team or decide to hand him a second season in F2, having graduated to the series straight from Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine by skipping Formula 3.

Following a difficult weekend for Prema in Bahrain, Antonelli moved up to ninth in the standings in Melbourne thanks to a fourth place in the feature race, from second on the grid.

Teammate Oliver Bearman scored his first point after making his debut with Ferrari in Jeddah. F2 doesn’t race again until the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix at Imola in May, giving Antonelli a window to conduct F1 testing. Sauber junior Zane Maloney leads the championship after three rounds, ahead of Paul Aron and Dennis Hauger.

Following practice on Friday, Lewis Hamilton says the Mercedes is in a “sweeter spot” as the team delivered an improved display in their “best session” of the season in Suzuka. Mercedes have endured a hugely disappointing start to their campaign, after a double DNF at the last race of the season in Australia.

Going into this weekend, the team had reset expectations as they have struggled in the past two years at Suzuka. In the dry FP1 session George Russell was fourth and in the wet FP2 session Hamilton fifth while FP2 was a washout.

Hamilton said, “It was a great session, the best session we’ve had this year and the best the car has felt this year so far. It felt really positive. Exciting. It’s a circuit that every driver loves to drive. In the last couple of years, we’ve had a really difficult car and balance to drive here.”

In the first three races, he has been less uncomfortable and out-qualified by his teammate as Mercedes has struggled to optimise the set-up of a car that was radically redesigned over the winter. It’s the first time this season that Hamilton out-qualified his teammate George Russell, but the seven-time champion said he is not worried about the head-to-head competition with Russell this year.

Adding “We’re not fighting for a championship, we’re just trying to get the best out of the car so it doesn’t make any difference to me. I’m just happier with a cleaner qualifying session and a car that I’m starting to feel like I can lean on more, and that’s a real positive.”

He added after qualifying “we did a really good job over this past week, the analysis everyone has done at the factory how we can get the car in the sweet spot, the car’s been much nicer to drive this weekend, especially at a track like this where you need a nice balance. This is the nicest it’s felt over the last three years.”

Russell described the pace on Friday as a “pleasant surprise”, but conditions which were cooler the team in Melbourne struggled in the warmer conditions, that could be a concern given most of the races are in the northern hemisphere summer.

He added “FP1, we definitely performed better than we expected, so that was a pleasant surprise. The car was feeling really nice to drive and Lewis and I were really happy with the balance. It has been performing better when it’s been slightly colder, but we’ve been doing a lot of test items to try to make that car a little bit more consistent when conditions are variable, so time will tell.”

Ferrari

Carlos Sainz says it is now time to “speed up” talks to secure a seat for 2025 and beyond after being ousted by Ferrari. His key win in Melbourne could put him in pole position if Max Verstappen stays with Red Bull, after being replaced by Lewis Hamilton.

While the three-time Grand Prix winner is highly rated, Mercedes has placed Verstappen, admits the Civil War and junior single-seater Andrea Kimi Antonelli as its top two targets. Alternatively, moves to Aston Martin and Red Bull are plausible.

On Thursday, he said, “”[I’m] talking obviously to a few because that’s what my management team and myself should do when I don’t have a job for next year yet. So, we’re talking to pretty much all of them.”

“It’s just a matter of obviously going more into detail and seeing the more realistic options and what are the best options for me and for my future, which I don’t have any news for you or nothing to say here today.”

I think Sainz is a key player because he has proved himself to be the only driver in a year to beat Verstappen, he can deliver consistency in his driving and points plus he is middle-aged in his career a decade in F1. In his first season alongside Max Verstappen, when they were both teammates he was overshadowed in what was a decent start most of his finishes where in the points and weren’t defeatist after Verstappen moved to Red Bull.

Following practice, Charles Leclerc said the team “lacking a little bit of pace” to challenge for pole. In FP1 teammate Sainz was third two-tenths behind Verstappen while he was sixth a further quarter of a second behind. But hoped that he would be able to unearth a “special lap” in Saturday’s qualifying session to put his Ferrari on pole for the first time in 2024, but reckoned that Red Bull had the upper hand after the opening day of running.

Leclerc said, “I’ll do my best [to fight for pole]. This is the target for sure. But in order to do so we need to make sure that we are prepared in the best possible way for tomorrow. And at the moment, I still feel like we are lacking a little bit of pace to go and challenge for pole position because Red Bull seems strong, and especially Max until now.

Sainz was more optimistic about Ferrari’s chances, explaining that Ferrari had drawn closer than expected to Red Bull after the initial FP1 times were locked in. He added that Red Bull would nonetheless provide a typically tough challenge, but was keen to point out the advancements that Ferrari had made towards the Milton Keynes squad compared to last year’s race at Suzuka.

I think this will give us some answers to whether Ferrari is going to be able to challenge Red Bull all season, but I still feel its unlikely that Red Bull can be beaten given they looked so strong in the first two races and the retirement in Melbourne was a blip.

Sainz optimism was rewarded with third, meaning he is the only driver in every race he has started this season to finish on the podium was “not possible” until his “mega pace” in the final stint. Sainz started fourth alongside McLaren’s Lando Norris and briefly led the Suzuka race after delaying his second pitstop, instead extending his stint on the medium tyres.

But while he was undercut by Leclerc, Norris and both Mercedes the race came to him as he had fresher tyres in the closing lap. But he believed that even with the tyre offset he didn’t think until the pace came and things started to cool off in the second half of the race that a podium was possible.

He explained “I was hopeful of achieving a podium that in the end we managed to achieve, even if it was a very tough race, very strategic. The track conditions changed a lot throughout the race. We went from a very sunny track that we hadn’t had a weekend to a very cloudy track.”

“The degradation went down a lot and you could push a lot more on the tyres halfway through the race. This changed the whole situation quite a lot. At one point, I thought the podium wasn’t possible. But then with the new hard [tyres], the pace was mega and I could get back onto the podium.”

I think they were always going to struggle to take the fight to Red Bull this weekend as Sainz was twenty seconds behind Verstappen and eight behind Perez. This is a high deg circuit which means that Verstappen had the tyre advantage given that Red Bull is so good on its tyres.

McLaren

David Sanchez has left McLaren just three months after joining the team from Ferrari. The Frenchman was recruited as part of a restructure of McLaren’s technical department.

Team principal Andrea Stella will fulfil Sanchez’s role until a permanent appointment is made. Stella said, “The role, responsibilities, and ambitions associated with David’s position did not align with our original expectations,”.

As part of the changes, Rob Marshall, who signed from Red Bull earlier this year, has become chief designer. He had previously been the technical director, engineering and design. Sanchez has not been put on gardening leave and will be free to join another team as soon as he can find a suitable position. was precipitated because Sanchez did not feel stretched in his new role because its remit was smaller than he expected when he agreed to join.

Following practice on Friday Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris both shared cautious optimism over McLaren’s prospects for the weekend after going eighth and tenth in the dry FP1 session. Norris was eighth and Piastri tenth in that dry session, while Piastri was one of few drivers to make the switch to slick tyres late on, in the process earning him the fastest time of the session – albeit one that served up little valuable data for the teams.

Asked what he learned from the day’s running, after leading Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc in FP2, Piastri said: “A few bits and pieces. I think we’re in decent shape. Even in FP1, the timing of the red flag was pretty awkward for us, so a bit hard to know exactly where we stand, but I think we’re about where we have been. I don’t really have much more than that [to go on] at the moment. We’ll see what we can do tomorrow.”

Six months ago both were on the podium, Piastri hoped the team would replicate the pace they had in Australia and had gained strengths from last season this has made him optimistic they can be near the front.

Norris added that the teams’s pace looks “reasonable” again so far this weekend. he said, “[It’s] better than it looked, I think, just because of the red flag. While I was on my best lap the red flag came out and then the tyres drop off a lot on the second lap. I think we’re in a good position, probably around third-quickest team, but very, very close with us, Mercedes and Aston. Kind of as you would expect, and Ferrari and Red Bull are too far ahead.

That reasonable pace continued into qualifying with Norris being best of the rest behind both Red Bull’s as he qualified third four-tenths off Verstappen, after Verstappen and Perez managed to improve on their final attempt. He said it was a “good step forwards.”

Asked how enjoyable it was to be in the mix at the front of the field again, Norris said: “It’s always exciting. You don’t get many chances, but we had a good car today. I could fight, I did some good laps, especially in Q3, so I’m very happy with today. It’s always enjoyable here in front of the fans. It’s a good one for us as McLaren, we had a good year last year, a good race last weekend, so it’s nice to still be here.”

I think he should be optimistic given where they were this time last year, before the strong turnaround we saw in the second half of last year. This as Norris said himself that the team are continuing to make some good steps forwards and they have had a good car all weekend.

Piastri, meanwhile, had to settle for a slightly less eye-catching sixth on the grid, having felt his qualifying session started much better than it finished. That was despite the Mercedes of George Russell being released into his path in the pit lane during Q1 in an incident the stewards are looking at post-session.

Piastri said “I think Q1 looked quite competitive and quite strong for myself, Q2 not quite as much, and then Q3 a similar kind of story. I think I just lost a bit of rhythm in Q2 and never quite found it again. It’ll be interesting to see where I could have improved.”

Norris says he felt as though he was “fighting a losing battle” and said McLaren would discuss their strategy choices in the after being overhauled by Ferrari in the fight for the podium. The Englishman lost out to both Ferrari’s in the race after being overtaken by Sainz and then lost fourth to Leclerc, who recovered from eighth using a one stop strategy.

Norris told Sky Sports “It was a tough race. Compared to the Ferraris, just not enough. I think everything fell back in line in terms of Red Bull, Ferrari and us. It’s a shame. It doesn’t feel great when you start third and go backwards. It feels like you are fighting a losing battle against these guys because they can just do a lot more. They can go longer and extend and have a bigger tyre delta. It’s hard to fight.”

I think McLaren’s dip was a good example of how close the pack is and there is a lot which can be won and lost this season. The team triggered the first round of stops but Leclerc was on a one-stop which gave him the overcut when the Ferrari driver stopped at half distance, but I feel they didn’t have the pace to fight for the podium.

Aston Martin

Fernando Alonso called his qualifying performance “unexpected” following Aston Martin’s upgrades, but doesn’t feel he can sustain his fifth on the grid. The Spaniard was second in Q1 with fifth in both Q2 and Q3, those upgrades have given the team more pace from the car than predicted.

Alonso ran the previous AMR24 car package during Friday practice at Suzuka, with team-mate Lance Stroll using the upgrades to provide comparison running, before both drivers switched to the upgrades, which focused on a revised sidepod and floor area changes.

Alonso said, “Yesterday I had the old package, today the new package. Tonight we will have all the data to confirm that, and to quantify the improvement, but everything felt good in qualifying. Little bit unexpected, to be that competitive, to be honest.”

“Just a couple of hundreds from [Sainz] Ferrari, Leclerc [is] behind us, Piastri behind us and Mercedes. So we were here six months ago – 1.5 seconds from pole position. And now we are four-tenths.” I think the team has started maybe to find their feet after looking not to have progressed from where they were this time last year.

But going into the race he wasn’t confident of keeping fifth given that Aston started ahead of Piastri, Leclerc and both Mercedes. The Aston doesn’t look as strong as last season which doesn’t help when that midfield pack has closed up so much. Alonso agreed with the sentiment that the F1 pack has closed up in qualifying but Red Bull remains clearly ahead on race pace.

Aston Martin has revealed that Lance Stroll’s rant during Grand Prix radio rant about top speed was actually the result of a tyre offset to his rivals. Stroll found himself having to battle through the field at Suzuka after a disappointing qualifying performance had left him in P16.

He did make progress through out the race but only to P12, as he fought with Yuki Tsunoda he felt the RB was pulling away. Stroll declared on the radio, “It’s unbelievable how bad our speed is on the straight man,” declared Stroll. “It’s like a different category!”

The manner of his message reminded many of the famous ‘GP2 engine’ radio outburst that his teammate Alonso launched at the 2015 Japanese Grand Prix against Honda.

After the race team principal, Mike Krack said the issue it was actually nothing to do with the Canadian’s Aston Martin lacking top speed through either too much drag or not enough engine power.

Instead, he said it was an illusion that had been caused by rivals around him having better tyres which gave them much better traction out of corners so they could accelerate and reach top speed earlier.

When asked by Motorsport.com about what was happening with Stroll. said Krack “This is something I have looked at actually. What you see across the field is that there are very small differences in terms of straight-line performance. But what you have is that at different times of the race, there are different tyre conditions, and the acceleration out of the corners is a different one.”

The limited data on power suggests as we have seen on track, that there is very little between them, in this case, the speed trap figures between the was 0.4KPH.

Alpine

Pierre Gasly says that he’s driving “like an animal” to compensate for the poor form displayed by his Alpine. The French manufacturer is the slowest car currently based on testing and opening races. In Melbourne, Gasly rose up the order by making a late first stop and following Nico Hulkenberg in the first part of the race, although the German eventually finished four places ahead.

Gasly says that the speed of the A524 has not compromised his motivation in the cockpit.    he said, “Once I’m in the car, I’m like an animal. I want to do the best I can with the package that I have in my hands. But even when we do an amazing lap and we are in P14 or do a really good race and you’re P13.”

“It’s not the same really satisfaction as if you do a really good race and finish either on the top step or P5 with the package you have. So as [long] as we learn and we move forward, that’s the most important thing. I know the team is working really hard, and I can see some of the directions they’re taking to improve the package we’ve got, and I know we’ll get better. But it’s just got to take time.”

Williams

Williams expects to finally have a spare chassis ready for the Miami Grand Prix, with Logan Sargeant racing in Japan using the chassis Alex Albon crashed in Australia.

The team controversially withdrew the American following the crash in FP1 by Albon which meant Williams was forced to enter only one car from Saturday onwards while the damaged FW46 was flown back to the UK for initial investigation and repairs. Sargeant will also remain in the repaired ex-Albon car this weekend, given the time constraints of refitting both chassis to accommodate another driver change.

The weekend didn’t start well, though the chassis was still in one piece after a “silly error” saw Sargent have a huge crash in FP1. The American ran wide at the high-speed Dunlop Curve left-hander and having put his right-hand side wheels on the grass, he lost control and spun into the barrier. That damaged the suspension and cracking the gearbox of the FW46.

This is not the start the team would have wanted as Sargeant after missing Melbourne and the team being limited on spares, the drivers crashing two races in a row and going into this weekend we said Suzuka punishes mistakes but it was another expensive incident for the team, especially with a second gearbox damaged in two events.

Sargeant admitted, “I put the car into place I didn’t realise I was at. It’s a bit of a silly error, to be honest, one that I shouldn’t be making, especially in P1. But yeah, fortunately, it wasn’t like the mistakes last year, it wasn’t an over-pushing thing, but nevertheless still left the team with some damage. Fortunately got away better than it could have been.”

But he insisted that he hadn’t suffered any loss of confidence in the wake of having to give his car to Albon in Australia. I think it was unlucky but Sargeant cannot keep making these mistakes this was put down to a placement error rather than him trying too hard or attempting to prove a point after his Australia disappointment.

RB

Yuki Tsunoda was full of relief after scoring a point on home soil in Japan for the very first time. With back-to-back top-ten finishes now, the RB driver is enjoying a rich run of form. The Japanese driver took the restart from P12 losing two places at the first start then made the bold call for the second start going to softs.

That allowed him to climb his way to tenth after jumping the Sauber, Williams and Haas, a net tenth at the time because those ahead of him were yet to stop. Tsunoda said after the race, “I would say after I lost a couple of positions in the first start, yeah I felt a bit of disappointment for sure but at the same time I had a great start after that and I think one of the big highlights was the pit stop.

“Our team did a fantastic job, the mechanics were very fast and we overtook two cars, insane! So – without them, without that – it probably would have been a lot more difficult to score a point today so big credit to the team and obviously able to score in front of Japanese fans finally, so very happy.”

Tsunoda had work to do as the team had opted for higher downforce with a dragger wing as that costs time on the straights, but it gives you the opportunity to brake later and their only being on DRS zone meant it wasn’t as of a disadvantage this weekend. I think RB needed that result as it has not been a stand-out start to the year, but Tsunoda has quietly been more consistent over the first four races

Daniel Ricciardo says his crash which brought out the red flag on the opening lap with Alex Albon was a “singular moment” and not part of his tough start. In the opening races he has been out-performed by his teammate Tsunoda. Matters were compounded when he clashed with Albon at Turn 3 on the opening lap of the Suzuka race which sent both drivers into the barriers.

Ricciardo felt opting to start the race on the medium tyres, while several rivals behind him started on softs, put him on the back foot for the start and ultimately triggered events that led to the Albon crash.

After giving his take on the clash, Ricciardo was eager to stress in his mind it wasn’t connected to his poor form and “just one of those things” in terms of a typical first-lap collision.

Ricciardo said, “Today is [a] singular moment. I don’t look at today and think ‘oh, man this year,’ like… ‘when it rains, it pours,’ or whatever. I feel it was just one of those things. We know [across] that 24 races, it’s likely that maybe I’m involved in another lap one incident, there’s just probability [that] these things kind of happen. It obviously sucks when they do. But I don’t look at it any more than today being a kind of singular incident.”

Facts and stats (F1.com)

• Verstappen today won a third straight Suzuka race, something only previously achieved by Michael Schumacher (2000-2002). Verstappen won from pole position for the 30th time in his career.
• Verstappen today became the fourth driver in history to reach 3,000 career laps led (after Schumacher, Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton)
• No season before this has ever started with four consecutive one-two finishes involving multiple constructors (three for Red Bull and one for Ferrari).
• Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz has a 100 percent podium finishing record whenever he has started a race in 2024.  Sainz now has three podium finishes already this year (he did not finish on the podium in the first 13 races of last season).
• Williams’ Alex Albon crashed out at the start after contact with Daniel Ricciardo – two of Albon’s four career lap-one eliminations have come at Suzuka (2022, 2024).

Results Summary

Championship Standings