Max Verstappen Crowned Formula 1 World Champion, Again

Max Verstappen had to wait nearly three-and-a-half hours. But it was well worth the wait because in the end, not only did he win the Japanese Grand Prix rather emphatically, he was also crowned Formula 1 racing's world champion for a second consecutive year.

Winning the dramatic, weather-afflicted race at the Suzuka circuit, Max Verstappen joined the rather elite club of Michael Schumacher, Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel as drivers who have won back-to-back world drivers championship titles.

He did it in a calm, composed manner which has been distinctly his style this season, beating the second placed driver by over 27 seconds. It showed once more why Verstappen has always looked like a champion likely to pick up his second title despite the rivalries that have mushroomed this year much to the delight of Formula 1 fans.

This time there would be no waiting for the final race of the season to decide the winner. Verstappen ensured that although he and Red Bull got off to a somewhat circumspect start, as he did at Suzuka despite being on pole, there would be no immediate rival to him by the halfway stage of a packed Formula 1 season. As his closest rival all season, Leclerc, later put it, it was always a matter of time when Verstappen would be confirmed winner of the 2022 season.

The race itself ran into tremendous controversy for more than one reason. For one, it was the controversial timing that was brought into question, with the weather interruption being a forgone conclusion. Even before Friday's practice, it became obvious that the race on Sunday would be a heavily rain afflicted one.

That the Pirelli tyre experiment had to be called off in lieu of another race at a later date was suggestive enough of the seriousness of the problem at hand and yet nothing was done about the race date or the scheduled timing of the race.

At the heart of the heavy atmosphere surrounding the Japanese Grand Prix was the ghastly reminder of the loss of one of F1's most promising drivers, Jules Bianchi, who never recovered from the severe injury he sustained on track.

Bianchi was not only one of the young drivers on the circuit in 2014 driving for Marussia and part of the Ferrari driver academy but also, was a godfather to Charles Leclerc, helping the young Monegasque driver garner financial support and sustenance to help him reach the highest echelons of the sport.

The dreary weather, and the manner in which the race was red flagged with barely one lap completed set off jitterbugs. Carlos Sainz, in the second Ferrari, was caught out by the water on track, the intermediate tires no match for the start of the race. He hydroplaned so dangerously off the track that even the Spaniard claimed to have invoked the Gods at one point. He knew that visibility was close to zero and that the drivers following quickly behind him would not notice him partly still on track, when his car crashed into the barriers and bounced back.

It happened quickly, where Pierre Gasly in the AlphaTauri found not only the broken barrier on the nose of his chassis but worse, found himself nearly face-to-face with a tractor on track serving as a recovery vehicle to move away the stranded Ferrari. Bianchi's horrific crash in 2014 at the same circuit under similar safety car conditions quickly came back into focus as Gasly remained livid with the happenings on track.

The lengthy red flag to the race gave fans and pundits the opportunity to revisit the gruelling nine months that Bianchi was in a coma. His car had skidded off the track and crashed hard at high speed into a recovery vehicle. The impact threw the multi-tonne crane off its feet, the young driver sustained severe brain damage on impact and never recovered.

It seemed a travesty to many that greater safety procedures were not followed, even as the race stewards seemed to only point to Gasly for speeding on track to meet the safety car following his pit stop while the safety car had been mobilised, and the issue of the red flag not yet intimated to the French driver.

While the blame game and nostalgia were discussed deeper into the dark day, the race itself was nearly at the point of being called off when even with a possible restart was aborted a couple of minutes even as cars were reset.

Eventually, it took over two hours and fifteen minutes for the race to resume. Even then there was a concern that the race might finish behind the safety car in what might have been a farce with only slightly better visibility and the rain easing off just that bit.

But the rain Gods proved merciful and what ensued was a nail biting finish in 45 laps that involved rather tricky pit stop decisions as well as some daring overtaking moves to settle the battle for places.

This time Verstappen got off not to a quick start, unlike the first start when Leclerc fancied his chance albeit for just one turn. He also pulled a considerable lead on second placed Leclerc once the wet tires, mandated behind the safety car, were switched to intermediates. With the clock ticking rather than counting down the laps, it became a matter of a mad dash for places lower down the pack even as Verstappen seemed to be in a zone of his own.

Amongst the many interesting battles were three previous world champions – Hamilton, Alonso, Vettel – having a go at each other. Forty-one-year-old Alonso's shocking move next year from Alpine to Aston Martin racing was the talking point over the summer break, even as Vettel had apparently been forced to make a hasty decision towards retirement by the team waiting on Alonso.

Alonso and Vettel had a photo finish at the chequered flag at the end of 28 laps of the 53 lap race. This in itself was something worth cheering about. But it was overshadowed by a more interesting finish ahead.

As Leclerc struggled to not only close in on Verstappen ahead of him but also, to keep Max's team mate at Red Bull, Sergio Perez, behind him, it seemed that the final laps of the race would yield a thrilling sequence of finishes not limited to the battle between past champions.

It took the end of the final lap as Verstappen finished leagues ahead of his peers that Leclerc, under pressure from Perez, went off track although he managed to resume the race in the second spot where he finished.

Confusion reigned not only about whether Leclerc would be penalised post race but also, the manner of the awarding of the points, depending on how many laps were managed in the race. In the end, there was also the matter of awarding the points based on whether the race could be resumed on the back of a red flag, the overlooked clause in the rules that threw everyone for a loop in the end.

Since the race did resume post the red flag and considerable laps had been rendered, full points were awarded to the drivers, putting mathematical equations to the test about whether Leclerc was still within marginal contention, while Perez was ruled out.

Even as Verstappen spoke at the post race presentation as the winner of the Japanese Grand Prix, word filtered through that Leclerc had been deemed as being guilty of going off the track and gaining an advantage. The five second penalty meant that Perez finished in second place, dropping Leclerc out of the running for the world drivers championship, crowning Verstappen the undisputed world drivers champion for the 2022 season.

From a dreadful start, dreary atmosphere and a drastic turnaround, the Suzuka circuit became the venue where the Honda engine-run Red Bull lifted the world drivers championship, rather comprehensively in the end based on flawless strategy in the pits and supreme driving skills on the part of the Dutchman.

Verstappen had mixed emotions as did the many Formula 1 fans whose patience and exasperation had been tested to the limit, equally for the fans who weathered the inclement rain and stayed on track through cold, wet weather. Perez's 253 points and Leclerc's 252 points pale in comparison to Max's 366 points accrued with four races still remaining in the season.

It says something of Verstappen who despite not having the best of starts to the season with Red Bull reliability put to the test managed to pull away in the second half of the season when it seemed he would go wheel-to-wheel with Leclerc after Ferrari's all too flattering start.

Speaking on the spot about the sudden turn of events that gave him his second world drivers championship, the twenty-five year old spoke honestly, "the first one (championship title) is a little more emotional. The second one is more beautiful. It's been a special year, and you need to remind yourself as these kind of years, you don't have very often. It's a pretty crazy feeling, of course, because I didn't expect it when I crossed the line. Of course, you could see it slowly happening, but it's incredible at the end of the day that we did win it here. I didn't know how many points I was going to get."

A 45-minute race in the end decided not only the winner in Suzuka which hasn't seen action since the coronavirus pandemic in 2022 but also, decided the championship conclusively for the season well before the end. This is significant even as a few equally important decisions have been left off the track with potential and possible budget cap violations and potential impact on teams and even the world drivers championship title that went down to the wire rather controversially in Abu Dhabi in 2021.