Norris and Piastri couldn't deny Verstappen's Suzuka miracle! The Dutchman wins in Japan!

Max Verstappen got away better than Lando Norris and maintained the lead. It was a quiet start as everything behind the leaders stayed as it was. Fernando Alonso and Pierre Gasly had a tough tussle as they approached 130R with the Spaniard edging out the Frenchman before the triangle chicane.

On lap 3 Verstappen managed to get Norris off his DRS, however, not all was good with the Dutchman’s RB21 as he complained his ‘upshifts were again really bad.’

On lap 6 Lewis Hamilton made his way past Isack Hadjar and took over P7 from the Racing Bulls rookie, and then set out to hunt down Andrea Kimi Antonelli.

On lap 7 Verstappen then reached out to Gianpiero Lambiase to inform him that upshifts were ‘a bit better’.

Alex Albon then mirrored Verstappen’s gearshifts complaints, albeit in a harsher way, clearly frustrated with the issues he encountered in the FW47.

On lap 14, Oscar Piastri started picking up the pace setting the fastest lap of the race.

On lap 18 McLaren sent a message to Norris, ‘box to overtake Verstappen, box to overtake Verstappen’. The Briton copied the message, but was then told to stay out. A clear dummy to try and lure Verstappen and Red Bull to take the bait.

Charles Leclerc then received a message telling him to extend as much as possible, whilst Russell, right behind the Monegasque, was told to pit, which he did at the end of lap 19.

On lap 20, Oscar Piastri pitted for the hard tyres. And at the end of lap 21, Verstappen and Norris came in together. Red Bull took 1 second longer than McLaren, which gave the Briton the illusion of a chance at an overtake. As he went for it, Verstappen did not move, leaving the Briton to end up biting the grass. Despite complaining on the radio, the issue was thrown out by the stewards who deemed no investigation was necessary on the incident.

On lap 31 Verstappen caught up to Hamilton and overtook him on the exit on the triangle chicane. He then proceeded to hunt down Antonelli, who was still leading since the leaders made their first pitstop.

On lap 36, Verstappen was told by Lambiase to push, ‘in case it wasn’t clear already.’ The gap at the time was of around 1,5 seconds.

As the race came to its final stages, Oscar Piastri started attacking teammate Lando Norris. At one point he was even within DRS range. He then reached out to the team to let him past, to go fight the win from Verstappen. A plea McLaren’s pitwall did not hear.

However, Norris started to pick up the pace, reeling Verstappen in one tenth at a time. In the remaining 8 laps the question remained: Had McLaren left the charge too late?

Behind them, Antonelli was gaining on teammate Russell, hand over fist. However, with seven laps to the chequeared flag taking P5 from his British teammate was surely a tall ask.