Analysis of the 2024 Japanese Grand Prix – By Joe Murphy
Max Verstappen extended his lead at the top of the tree as he continued his streak of winning races when finhsing them. He finished a dozen seconds ahead of his teammate, Sergio Perez, who made sure it was a fourth 1-2 finish of the season, with three of these coming from the reigning Constructors World Champions.
In another impressive showing, Carlos Sainz claimed another podium and remains the only driver to get a podium in ever race this season of which he has started. Lando Norris held of Charles Leclerc and George Russell to claim a larger share of the points whilst the other McLaren similarly held off the other Mercedes. Sandwiched inbetween was Fernando Alonso who continues to carry Aston Martin and scored decent points again for the team today.
One of the standout drives came from Yuki Tsunoda who won’t care that he was a lapped car as he won a precious point for RB. It had started so poorly for the team too as Daniel Ricciardo crashed on the opening lap having tangled with Alex Albon, who also saw his race come to a premature end.
Haas, Sauber and Alpine couldn’t come up with anything special to get near the points so leave the ‘Land of the Rising Sun’ empty handed. Red Bull take away a lot of confidence after the set back down under, and look to keep the wins coming in when F1 heads back to China in less than a fortnight.
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