Red Bull’s Max Verstappen fended off a race-long challenge from the McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri to win the Japanese Grand Prix.
The Dutchman’s fourth consecutive victory at Suzuka was his first of the year and moves Verstappen to within one point of Norris at the head of the drivers’ championship.
Verstappen’s drive was cool under intense pressure, with rarely more than two seconds between him and Norris, and founded on a quite brilliant pole position lap on Saturday.
McLaren had feared that the Red Bull would be difficult to pass if Verstappen held the lead at the start, and so it proved.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc held off Russell for fourth place, while the Briton’s 18-year-old team-mate Andrea Kimi Antonelli put in a strong final stint to close to less than two seconds behind his team-mate.
Lewis Hamilton, on an alternate tyre strategy, took seventh from eighth place on the grid, getting ahead of Racing Bulls’ Isack Hadjar early in the race.
Alex Albon drove an attacking race, complaining to the Williams team about his strategy, to take ninth, ahead of the Haas of Briton Oliver Bearman.
In his first race for Red Bull, Yuki Tsunoda finished 12th with the man he replaced, Liam Lawson, 17th in the Racing Bull.
