Max Verstappen clinched top spot on the podium at Japanese Grand Prix
on Sunday ahead of Sergio Perez as Red Bull claimed yet another one-two finish – their third in four races.

The triple world champion has taken early lead in the world championship, ahead of the fifth race in China in two weeks.

A look at the talking points from Formula 1’s Japanese Grand Prix:

Verstappen returns to podium

The Dutchman said after his win at Suzuka that it was “a very long season” and he wanted to “approach it race by race”.

But Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has already declared that “no one is going to catch Max this year”.

Wolff stated rest of the drivers are competing to be “the best of the rest”, and Verstappen’s dominant win made it easy to understand why.

After the
blip in Australia
, Verstappen never looked troubled in controlling the race from start to finish, and crossed the line 12.5sec ahead of teammate Perez.

“Whenever I needed to go faster I could, whenever I needed to look after my tyres I could,” said Verstappen.

“That’s always a nice feeling to have when you’re driving.”

However, Red Bull’s success on the track has been somewhat overshadowed by
team disunity and allegations against team boss Christian Horner
.

There were no obvious signs of turmoil at Suzuka, with Verstappen saying he was “very happy” with the team. But remained tight-lipped on what happens when his contract runs out in 2028.

Mercedes get stuck. Again

Mercedes had another disappointing weekend, a collapse for the once-mighty Silver Arrows.

George Russell finished seventh, two places ahead of Lewis Hamilton, who had problems with tyres and steering.

Wolff tried to put a positive spin on the weekend, saying it had been “better than the final results suggest”.

“From what we’ve seen here, we can say that the car is becoming quicker,” he said.

Hamilton, however, did not appear convinced: “If we want to move up the grid, then we will need to add more performance to the car.”

The build-up to the race was dominated by talk of
Hamilton’s successor
, who will join Ferrari at the end of the season.

The Briton would be keen on going out with a bang but the chances of that look slim on current evidence, despite some tentative signs of improvement.

Tsunoda outshines Ricciardo

Yuki Tsunoda was everywhere at Suzuka – three giant banners emblazoned with his face hung from the grandstand and fans waved posters of him from every corner of the track.

The Japanese favourite repaid their support with a 10th-place finish – the first time he had scored points at his home grand prix.

Tsunoda started from 10th on the grid but dropped back before the race was red-flagged on the first lap.

His RB team helped him claw back his position with a lightning-fast pitstop.

“Our mechanics did a fantastic job – it was such a fast pitstop that allowed us to overtake two cars, and that’s insane,” he said.

“Without that, it would have been a lot more difficult to score points today, so the team deserves big credit.”

Tsunoda also scored points with a seventh-place finish in Australia two weeks ago.

With experienced team-mate Daniel Ricciardo struggling, Tsunoda is becoming RB’s main man – at least in the eyes of fans in Japan.

(with inputs from AFP)