Given that the 2023 Formula One season has definitively belonged to Max Verstappen, how fitting it was that he single-handedly closed out the constructors’ championship for his Red Bull team with a commanding victory at the Japanese Grand Prix.
Moreover he is now drivers’ champion elect, the title all but claimed at Suzuka, only the formality of closing it out in Qatar remains.
The race was almost the season in microcosm as Verstappen dominated from pole to flag. Imperturbable, untouchable, unstoppable, he is the terminator yet one still young enough to be adorned with wisps of teenage‑esque facial hair. He has 13 wins from 16 grands prix now and has been the overwhelming contributor to Red Bull seizing their sixth title with a record six meetings to go.
The 25-year-old was joined by the team principal, Christian Horner, on the podium to acknowledge the team championship, one that has long been inevitable but rightly celebrated with abandon at one of F1’s greatest venues. For Verstappen, the drivers’ title is likely to be delivered in considerably more underwhelming circumstances.
With his teammate Sergio Pérez enduring another shocking afternoon and retiring from the race, Verstappen is poised to take his third championship at the sprint race in the next round in Doha. He leads Pérez by 177 points and needs to be ahead by 172 after the sprint to seal it. Pérez must outscore him by six points in the sprint just to take the fight into Sunday, an enormously tall order.
Verstappen will probably secure the title in a meaningless 30-minute dash in the desert, a procession at a doubtless all but empty circuit devoid of atmosphere. He will likely have claimed it without even the honour of climbing to a podium since the sprint format celebrates its winners on the track as they emerge from their cars.
F1 knew this was a risk when it instigated the format, and doubly so when scheduling them at the business end of the season, decisions they might think long and hard about over the winter.
Verstappen said this weekend that he does not care about how and where the title is won, only that it is under his belt as he continues what has been an inexorable march typified by the run at Suzuka. Having been challenged at the start by McLaren’s Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri he held his nerve and his place sandwiched between the two charging papaya cars, kept his nose in front as they swept into the esses and that was it.
Clean air beckoned and with it an ever-extending gap – the McLarens throwing all they had at him but left behind nonetheless. By the close the gap to Norris, who was second, was 19.4 seconds. Piastri was third, a brilliant result for the rookie taking his first podium on a challenging circuit on which he had never raced. The Australian is an undoubted talent.
The race had never looked in doubt for Verstappen after those opening moments and as Pérez once more flailed in contact with other cars, sustaining damage and a series of penalties before he was retired, it was the world champion who brought home the points Red Bull required.
Their title is a remarkable feat, their second in a row and their sixth since they were formed in 2005. Their RB19 has been utterly dominant this season, winning 15 of 16 races, denied but once by Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz at the last round in Singapore. Their endeavours were acknowledged by a beaming Horner, who was visibly proud of his team’s achievement.
“This sixth constructors’ championship is beyond our wildest dreams, coming into the season I don’t think we could have dreamed of having a season like this,” he said.
“It’s unbelievable. Last year was a very strong year for us but to have kept that momentum rolling with the challenges we have had is testimony to all the men and women of the team that have worked tirelessly to have produced a car as competitive as we have had and that Max has made such good use of.”
Verstappen has been the vanguard of their charge and, had Pérez been closer to his teammate on more occasions, they might have closed it out even sooner. “Max is absolutely at the top of the game, he is the best driver in F1 at this point in time,” Horner said. “He has this inner hunger and determination and huge ability but he channels it and he does not get distracted by some of the trappings of F1, he is an out and out racer.”
The rest of the grid has some way to go to come close to matching Red Bull and it must be hoped they do so but this was a title the team thoroughly deserved. They have not only had a mighty car but have been all but flawless operationally, calling races with precision and setting the benchmark for performance at the top level.
One title is done then and the second in the bag. Red Bull and Verstappen leave Japan with their season all but complete, the sport’s dominant force enjoying their spoils but doubtless with one eye already on the future.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was fourth with Lewis Hamilton and George Russell in fifth and seventh for Mercedes. Sainz was sixth for Ferrari, Fernando Alonso in eighth for Aston Martin, and Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly, for Alpine, in ninth and 10th.
