A Return to Winning Ways and Points on Home Tarmac

Image: Red Bull Content Pool

Formula One rolled into Suzuka last weekend, around five months earlier in the calendar than usual, and saw an attendance of 229,000 - its highest since 2006. Recovering from a rare mechanical failure in Australia, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen cruised his RB20 to his 57th career victory and third consecutive Japanese Grand Prix win. There’s plenty more to cover, so read on!

Qualifying

It was business as usual for Max Verstappen, although this time he had to work a little bit harder for pole position - Sergio Perez seems to have clicked back into gear this season so far, proving his worth as the best second driver on the grid. The Mexican driver set a P2 lap just 0.066s behind his teammate, and two tenths ahead of Norris in P3, a lot closer to the Dutchman than he’s been for a while in terms of qualifying pace.

Yuki Tsunoda, in front of his home crowd, got into Q3 for the third race in a row so far this season, impressing his adoring fans and (more importantly) the grid’s team principals. There has been a lot of subsequent lobbying from fans on social media to have the Japanese driver promoted to the main Red Bull team and, if his performance and 4-0 qualifying lead over his much more experienced teammate Ricciardo continues for long enough, it may only be a matter of time until he’s seriously considered.

Q3 in front of you all is so special for me! Thank you for all the support so far this weekend, I’m ready to give it a big push tomorrow! 👊

@yukitsunoda07 on Twitter/X

Fernando Alonso qualified in fifth, far ahead of Canadian teammate Lance Stroll, who made a few neat and tidy moves in the race come Sunday.

Mirrors not required

Daniel Ricciardo and Alexander Albon had a first-lap coming together at Turn 3 - with the RB driver pulling over to the right in preparation for the first left-hander of many in the track’s first sector, pushing an opportunistic Albon off the track and causing both drivers to collide and spin across the gravel trap into the barrier, ending their races.

As was discussed in our latest episode of the Race Reaction Podcast, linked below, we feel as though both drivers were to blame for this incident; Daniel got a bad exit out of the previous corner and hence should’ve been checking his right-hand mirror for someone attempting to capitalise on this and, equally, Albon should have kept his cool, bided his time a bit and waited to try and overtake later on in the lap, perhaps towards the hairpin or even back straight.

Both drivers should of course have their tails between their legs at the moment, as Ricciardo has seemingly been struggling to make any sort of impression since his full-time comeback at the start of the season and Albon is beginning to rack up quite a sizeable list of expenditures for Williams, a team currently with limited funding and resources that can’t provide him with a new and repaired chassis every weekend.

Perez back on form

Sergio Perez had a bit of a knock in confidence last year, being outclassed in almost every way by Max Verstappen. After the winter break and some rumours around his future in the sport, Checo appears to have remembered what team he’s driving for and has put on very solid performances in 2024 so far, receiving praise once again from the ominous team presence that is Helmut Marko.

Having qualified close behind Verstappen and crossing the line in the same position, Perez now has a 75% podium rate in 2024 as it stands and has reclaimed P2 in the drivers’ championship - let’s see if he can keep it going.

Sauber Kicking themselves

The green and black-liveried Kick Sauber team hasn’t had the most rewarding start to the year, showing weakness not only in general pace but especially in pit stops. The team has failed to score points in the opening stages of the season and this dry run continued in Suzuka.

With Bottas qualifying 13th and Zhou all the way down in last, this race wasn’t set to be a memorable one for the team; the Finn finished a disappointing 14th and Zhou was forced into retirement on lap fourteen with a gearbox issue.

Obviously it’s very frustrating at the moment with several issues over the weekend … it’s been a pretty, let’s say, disappointing start of the year.

Zhou Guanyu on his retirement from the race on lap 14

With Audi’s buyout and takeover of the Sauber name in 2026 figuratively around the corner, Stake will need to do a lot more to prove that it’s not just a filler backmarker team between now and then.

The Silver Arrows need sharpening

It wasn’t the weekend that Mercedes were hoping for at Suzuka, a track where the team won six years on the trot from 2014 - 2019, showing half-decent qualifying pace and coming home with a minimal 8 points.

Team Principal Toto Wolff has gone on record however to be the voice of optimism, promising that performance will improve over the coming weeks and months:

Overall, this weekend has been better than the final results suggest. We have lots to learn and there is no track relevant excuse we will use … we can say that the car is becoming quicker.

Toto Wolff on the team’s recent performance

George Russell came away from his P7 finish hopeful - stating “Hopefully a track like the one in China will suit us better”, with the departing Hamilton giving his outlook on the weekend: “If we want to move up the grid, then we will need to add more performance to the car”

So, we’re off to Shanghai next time round, for the first time since 2019! Who will capitalise on the Sprint format and how will the field be shaken up by the lack of post-2022 regulations track data? We’ll be covering all the best bits here on Race Reaction.

Listen to the latest episode of the Race Reaction Podcast below!

Final Race Classification

1 - Max VERSTAPPEN

2 - Sergio PEREZ

3 - Carlos SAINZ

4 - Charles LECLERC

5 - Lando NORRIS

6 - Fernando ALONSO

7 - George RUSSELL

8 - Oscar PIASTRI

9 - Lewis HAMILTON

10 - Yuki TSUNODA

11 - Nico HULKENBERG

12 - Lance STROLL

13 - Kevin MAGNUSSEN

14 - Valtteri BOTTAS

15 - Esteban OCON

16 - Pierre GASLY

17 - Logan SARGEANT

DNF - Zhou GUANYU

DNF - Daniel RICCIARDO

DNF - Alexander ALBON