Red Bull driver’s win extends lead at top of championshipPérez in second, Ferrari’s Sainz third, Hamilton ninth
Max Verstappen ensured it was business as usual with a commanding, untroubled victory from pole to flag at the Japanese Grand Prix. The Red Bull driver comfortably beat his teammate Sergio Pérez into second place at Suzuka, with Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz in third. George Russell and Lewis Hamilton made little headway, finishing in seventh and ninth, with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc in fourth and McLaren’s Lando Norris in fifth.
For Verstappen this was another consolidation of the control he has exerted over the season in its opening four meetings. He has won three of them with ease and would probably have been on top in the last round in Australia but for the brake failure which ended his race. His consistency remains remarkable and since the Miami GP last year he has been beaten only twice, both times by Sainz: once in Singapore in 2023 and then in Melbourne, a sequence of unprecedented dominance.
