Red Bull’s Max Verstappen won a rain-impacted, red-flagged, and shortened Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka on Sunday to be crowned world champion for second time.
Verstappen just held his lead from the pole position at the start in wet conditions, which quickly worsened and led to Carlos Sainz (Ferrari) crashing heavily. The race was red-flagged on Lap 3, which led to a lengthy delay as the heavy rain continued.
As conditions improved slightly, the race was restarted with 40 minutes remaining on the event clock, with Verstappen holding sway again and pulling clear of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc to score his 12th win of the season.
That pushed him back to third and was enough for Verstappen to be confirmed as champion as total points were awarded despite the race only running to 28 laps.
2022 Japanese Grand Prix race results
Cla Driver Laps Gap Interval Points
1 Max Verstappen 28 25
2 Sergio Perez 28 27.066 27.066 18
3 Charles Leclerc 28 31.763 4.697 15
4 Esteban Ocon 28 39.685 7.922 12
5 Lewis Hamilton 28 40.326 0.641 10
6 Sebastian Vettel 28 46.358 6.032 8
7 Fernando Alonso 28 46.369 0.011 6
8 George Russell 28 47.661 1.292 4
9 Nicholas Latifi 28 1’10.143 22.482 2
10 Lando Norris 28 1’10.782 0.639 1
11 Daniel Ricciardo 28 1’12.877 2.095
12 Lance Stroll 28 1’13.904 1.027
13 Yuki Tsunoda 28 1’15.599 1.695
14 Kevin Magnussen 28 1’26.016 10.417
15 Valtteri Bottas 28 1’26.496 0.480
16 Zhou Guanyu 28 1’27.043 0.547
17 Pierre Gasly 28 1’28.091 1.048
18 Mick Schumacher 28 1’32.523 4.432
Alex Albon 0
Carlos Sainz 0
How the Japanese Grand Prix unfolded
On a wet track, with all the cars in the field starting on intermediate tires, Verstappen just held on to his pole advantage on the run to Turn 1 despite a poor initial getaway.
Leclerc, who raced him wheel-to-wheel until Turn 2, led the chase ahead of Perez, Sainz, Esteban Ocon (Alpine), and Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes).
Sebastian Vettel spun his Aston Martin after he clashed with the Alpine of Fernando Alonso on the chaotic dash to Turn 1, then Sainz aquaplaned off at the right-hander following the hairpin, causing a safety car.
Zhou Guanyu spun his Alfa Romeo at the hairpin, as Pierre Gasly started from the pit lane but picked up an advertising hoarding from the Sainz crash on the front of his AlphaTauri. At the same time, Alex Albon’s Williams ground to a halt.
Due to intensifying rain, the race director decided to red flag the race on Lap 3 but not before Gasly, who had pitted for a new nose section, controversially suffered a near miss with a tractor that was recovering Sainz’s car.
After a long delay, due to a prolonged period of torrential rain, the race resumed under the safety car with only 48 minutes remaining on the clock with all cars now on extreme wets. The race went green with 40 minutes to go.
Verstappen headed Leclerc, Perez, Ocon, Hamilton and Alonso. Vettel led a handful of cars that pitted for inters almost straight away and began setting faster sector times, prompting the leaders to pit too.
Alonso led for a lap, with Verstappen rejoining in fourth before he too pitted. Mick Schumacher briefly led for Haas before Verstappen swept past to retake the lead, as Leclerc dropped back to 5s behind.
After setting the fastest lap, Leclerc struggled for grip as the race went on, losing over 20 seconds to Verstappen and allowing Perez to close in.
Perez attacked hard in the closing stages, but Leclerc managed to fend him off to finish a distant second – but had to straight line the Casio Triangle on the last lap and almost pushed Perez off at the final corner. That led to a 5s penalty, which promoted Perez to second.
Ocon and Hamilton fought out an epic duel over fourth, with Vettel reaping the benefit of his early pit call to jump up to sixth.
George Russell lost time in the pitstops, being forced to stack behind Hamilton, but pulled off a sequence of brilliant passes to recover to finish eighth.
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Alonso made a second stop for fresh inters, which dropped him to 10th, but he charged back to pass Russell on the final lap for seventh but just missed out on getting Vettel.
