Max Verstappen, Red Bull, Suzuka, 2023

2023 Japanese Grand Prix race result and championship points

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Max Verstappen has won the Japanese Grand Prix for Red Bull ahead of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri.

P. # Driver Team Car
1 1 Max Verstappen Red Bull-Honda RBPT RB19
2 4 Lando Norris McLaren-Mercedes MCL60
3 81 Oscar Piastri McLaren-Mercedes MCL60
4 16 Charles Leclerc Ferrari SF-23
5 44 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes W14
6 55 Carlos Sainz Jnr Ferrari SF-23
7 63 George Russell Mercedes W14
8 14 Fernando Alonso Aston Martin-Mercedes AMR23
9 31 Esteban Ocon Alpine-Renault A523
10 10 Pierre Gasly Alpine-Renault A523
11 40 Liam Lawson AlphaTauri-Honda RBPT AT04
12 22 Yuki Tsunoda AlphaTauri-Honda RBPT AT04
13 24 Zhou Guanyu Alfa Romeo-Ferrari C43
14 27 Nico Hulkenberg Haas-Ferrari VF-23
15 20 Kevin Magnussen Haas-Ferrari VF-23
DNF 23 Alexander Albon Williams-Mercedes FW45
DNF 2 Logan Sargeant Williams-Mercedes FW45
DNF 18 Lance Stroll Aston Martin-Mercedes AMR23
DNF 11 Sergio Perez Red Bull-Honda RBPT RB19
DNF 77 Valtteri Bottas Alfa Romeo-Ferrari C43

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Max Verstappen leads the drivers championship by 177 points from Sergio Perez after the Japanese Grand Prix.

2023 F1 drivers championship standings

Position Driver Points Gap to leader
1 Max Verstappen 400
2 Sergio Perez 223 177
3 Lewis Hamilton 190 210
4 Fernando Alonso 174 226
5 Carlos Sainz Jnr 150 250
6 Charles Leclerc 135 265
7 Lando Norris 115 285
8 George Russell 115 285
9 Oscar Piastri 57 343
10 Lance Stroll 47 353
11 Pierre Gasly 46 354
12 Esteban Ocon 38 362
13 Alexander Albon 21 379
14 Nico Hulkenberg 9 391
15 Valtteri Bottas 6 394
16 Zhou Guanyu 4 396
17 Yuki Tsunoda 3 397
18 Kevin Magnussen 3 397
19 Liam Lawson 2 398
20 Logan Sargeant 0 400
21 Nyck de Vries 0 400
22 Daniel Ricciardo 0 400

Points available over remaining rounds: 180

2023 F1 constructors championship standings

Position Team Points Gap to leader
1 Red Bull 623
2 Mercedes 305 318
3 Ferrari 285 338
4 Aston Martin 221 402
5 McLaren 172 451
6 Alpine 84 539
7 Williams 21 602
8 Haas 12 611
9 Alfa Romeo 10 613
10 AlphaTauri 5 618

Points available over remaining rounds: 309

Standings with 16 out of 22 races complete.

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2023 Japanese Grand Prix

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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55 comments on “2023 Japanese Grand Prix race result and championship points”

  1. Perez will struggle to finish 2nd If he keeps driving like this.

    What a embarassing performance.

    1. And Alonso lost his third place, and AM will lose fourth to McLaren. I would have loved to see Alonso take that second spot. But not with this car.

  2. Go Mercedes and Lewis – costing Mercedes 2 points and probably more :-)

    Lewis being dirty driving yet again getting away with pushing his teammate of the road with his signature deliberate understeer to the outside move.

    Mercedes again favoring Lewis even at the cost of the team – Russell was absolutely right that using Lewis with DRS from Russell to protect both was the best strategy – obviously selfish Lewis pushed for him to be ahead of Russell with direct result that Russell lost the place to Sainz as he was on much older tires and DRS wouldn’t help. Russell even offered to give up 5th place on last lap – so there is only 1 team driver at Mercedes for sure.

    Instead of finishing 5th and 6th, they finish 5th and 7th.

    Let’s hear all the Lewis fan boys defend Lewis pushing George wide – they all complained about Brazil 2021 yet will argue that it is all OK when Lewis does it.

    1. Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
      24th September 2023, 8:00

      Russell is the one costing mercedes. He’s crashed out twice and messed up another time and finished last. A loss of 1 position that may well have been the same regardless is nothing compared to how much russell is costing the team with his errors.

      1. Not getting into that teammate fight, but Team Russell’s strategy today was, what shall we say? Optimistic?

    2. Gotta say that move at Spoon was a mini-version of Max and Lewis at turn 4 in Interlagos. Astonished there was no penalty back then, and somewhat surprised there was no penalty today. I guess the stewards have set a precedent.

      1. Lewis didnt leave the track, and in brazil Max seemed like he wants to drive til Argentina.

    3. Russell was so slow, without the swap they lose both positions instead of just one. Hamilton was correct. Russell’s call to one stop, if it was his, cost him the position against Sainz. Russell is not driving or thinking like the heir apparent for that team.

      1. Disagree, you’re underestimating the effect of drs trains used defensively.

        1. We saw what Russell achieved with DRS.

    4. You must have watched a different race. The Ferrari was much faster both Mercedes and had fresher tires, hence it would definitely have overtaken them both.

      It was Russell who was being selfish with his attempt to play strategist and make his optimistic one stopper gamble pay off.

      In fact, Mercedes left the call to invert positions almost too late, as this is what allowed Sainz to cruise up to both of them.

      Also, it makes far more sense to give position to the faster car on the right strategy, and also the driver with vastly more points. Furthermore, P2 in the drivers championship is a reality giving the way Perez is driving.

      As for the reference to Brazil 2021, i bet you didn’t complain about it, so why would you expect others to complain about this? Never mind that the stewards didn’t have an issue with either incident.

      It seems your apparent hate for Lewis Hamilton isn’t allowing you to think properly.

      1. In fact, Mercedes left the call to invert positions almost too late, as this is what allowed Sainz to cruise up to both of them.

        Giagantot, remember that the pit radio we hear on TV is always delayed and reviewed before transmission, so although it looks like they left it until Hamilton was all over the back of him, the race engineers would have made the call earlier. Remember as well that all teams can hear other teams radios in real time, so race engineers don’t want to give those calls too early as it gives the competitor, in this case Ferrari, too much time to respond. So a late call should be fine, provided the driver doesn’t want to debate it and just gets on with it.

    5. What a missed opportunity for a double Merc DNF. Keep at that, Sir, you’ll achieve it someday soon.

      1. The biggest threat in these terms is Perez

    6. Your stupid Hamilton hate blurs your vision.

  3. The points lead means Max will clinch the championship in the sprint if his advantage is at least 172 after that session.
    A surprisingly lot of DNFs & all into the garage, with both Checo & Logan clumsy into the hairpin.
    Checo’s brief return was surprising unless he merely did that to serve a possible 5 or 10-sec time penalty to avoid a 3-place grid penalty for Qatar.

    1. I was bewildered that this was allowed.

      If we assume this is ok, then teams could use this in many different ways. Returning the other car to put rivals into traffic, or to post fastest lap and take one point away from a rival team etc.

      1. I agree & as such an action seemingly has never been against the rules, I’m surprised no one else has ever done since post-2005.
        FIA might close a loophole as a reaction.

      2. I’m not really sure what the issue is to be honest. I don’t like the idea of cars rejoining to upset the outcome but what’s stopping them doing either of those actions with Perez running 11th and slowing down to 15th for example? At the end of the day it’s to do with etiquette – I wouldn’t put Checo back in the race but getting 3 place grid penalty at the next round when you’ve retired here is equally stupid officiating.

      3. It surprised me more that they retired Perez in the first place, with an impending penalty, unless the car was unsafe to carry on, and they subsequently repaired it before Perez rejoined.

        I suppose you could just force cars out if they go beyond, say, 10% race distance behind the leader. But then there’s the possibility of safety cars where you can unlap yourself, so that would be a difficult one. Also you don’t want to encourage cars staying out in an unsafe condition to take a penalty.

        1. Yhey wanted to safe gearbox and engine wear that is why they did it but a penaulty not served is a gridpenaulty for next race.

        2. I suppose you could just force cars out if they go beyond, say, 10% race distance behind the leader.

          I think that is a fair thing to do. We have a 107% qualifying rule because there was a time when cars were being lapped multiple times per race, and when a car is that slow, it has no chance of scoring and is just a potential hazard to other cars, a potential obstacle that could ruin a driver’s race result. Your 10% rule would be the equivalent of being lapped five or six times, and Perez was what, about 20 laps down, more like 40% race distance. I could have some sympathy with a team going out again in the first few races of the season, because they want some track time to better understand the car, expecially if they’d lost the time because someone had run into them, but Perez’s problems were of his own making.

          As a side note, on your point about cars unlapping themselves under safety car, I always thought this was a stupid idea. I think it was dreamed up because they wanted the race leaders to be fighting each other on the restart, without a backmarker between them, for the sake of the show, but it always seems unfair on the other cars who have earned those gaps and track positions the hard way.

      4. I hope they do. Cars should be on the track if they safely can be, not in the garage.
        If the points system was better, there would be more incentive for all cars to try and finish every race.

  4. There’s only one driver in it – you need a telescope to see the rest!

  5. Get a grip on yourself man.

    This cant be healthy.

  6. I wonder if someone could work out how many points the Max vs the competition would have if Red Bull hadn’t bothered to field a second car. My gut feel is that Max could win the constructor’s title single-handedly

    1. It’s there in the table. Max has 400 points which is a 95 point lead over team Mercedes and a 115 lead over team Ferrari. However, strictly you need to take Perez out the equation, I suppose, and elevate the point of everyone else, but in a couple of cases that would also elevate Max’s points! It would be one way to accommodate the salary cap …

      1. You haven’t factored the points changes if you took Perez out, so in a fair few cases the Merc drivers would have gained more points, bringing them closer to the 400. But alas, I bet still nowhere near.

      2. Sorry, this was a reply to the wrong comment.

      3. Yeah, but I believe someone is paying for Perez his seat. So in the end, it doesn’t really matter.
        But you made me chuckle.

    2. Well, Verstappen has scored 400 points, Mercedes have scored 305 across both cars, so although RBR wouldn’t be crowned Constructors Champions today, it would still be the most likely outcome

      1. You would first need to cross out Perez results from all the races and thus other drivers had more points in that scenario. In that scenario Verstappen would also get few additional points (for Jeddah and Baku) but others would get much more, so probably he alone would not secure Constructors (only maybe by the end of the year, if Mclarens keep finishing 2nd and 3rd).

    3. If Red Bull benched Perez for the season Max would have had at least 15 more points (2 more wins instead of 2nd places and 2nd instead of 3rd in Baku sprint) maybe a few more FLAP.

      To that extend Perez took more points of Max than any other driver this season.

      As others pointed out, Max alone holds 95 point lead over Mercedes, that would have been 110 without Perez. Obviously without Perez RB would not yet be constructor champions in Japan.

      1. And you convieniently forget to count the points which all others would have achieves more withour Perez? So much orange smoke in some ppls heads…

  7. First Hamilton x Russell duel was the highlight of the race. But Ham just drove him off the track later on.

    Possibly not worth a penalty, but unnecessary at best and very shortsighted in my opinion. This year Mercedes have nothing to fight for and thus it is the best opportunity to set some relationship between the two drivers, but instead they seem so tense about the other driver for much of the year.

    Russell has had no real luck moments this season and Mercedes´s orders at the end of the race seemed stupid (even if it meant that Sainz would take them both) or do the Mercedes still keep hope they could clinch second in drivers? Second in constructors seems tall shot as well at the moment. Today Sainz was sacrificed for nothing, Ferrari had the pace to keep both cars ahead of Mercedes.

    Norris will climb through the standing quickly now. Mclaren will steamroll Aston Martin as well.

    1. Mercedes´s orders at the end of the race seemed stupid (even if it meant that Sainz would take them both)

      This is exactly why you aren’t a strategist or team principal in Formula 1.

      Sainz would have overtaken them both, and they left the call to invert positions almost too late.

      It makes far more sense to give position to the faster car and also the driver with vastly more points. Furthermore, P2 in the constructors is a reality giving the way Perez is driving.

      I’d say stick to your day job.

      1. I meant P2 in the drivers championship….

        1. P20 is more like it

          1. very intelligent maths of yours.

      2. Even if Perez only has two solid races in the rest of the season, that is 36 points for him. Add the current deficit of 33 points and you stand on 69 points. Hamilton´s average for the 16 races so far is 12 points for a race.

        They would be tied on points at the end, and that´s only in case Perez takes points in those two races.

        The chance is very slim.

        I will stick to my day job, thank you. But what I am saying is even is Sainz overtook them both the points swing in Sainz/Ferrari favor would be minimal. Taking that into account, the team should have stick to the non-favoring between the drivers at this moment. Russel has every reason to leave disgruntled, he was pushed wide and later had to let Lewis through.

        1. Plus I am not convinced that either Mercedes or Ferrari desire second in the WCC. Only for prestige reasons, but both teams would certainly love to have more development time at their disposal.

      3. You can’t overtake people in a drs train used effectively.

        1. Seems like Russell wasnt able to use it effectively then

          1. GR’s strategy (or Merc’s strategy for GR) was disastrous even in a DRS train he had it very hard to avoid being overtaken even in a DRS train

    2. Russell has safety cars helping him at Monaco and Baku, he just made mistakes afterwards

  8. The fact that Alpha Tauri still have a mathematical chance of finishing second in the constructor’s championship shows how early in the season Red Bull’s victory has been achieved. What a car! And Max potentially WDC next race? Only Perez has a mathematical chance, but unless Max DNF’s it’s game over dude!

    1. Not only the next race, but sprint already as his points lead is above the amount available post-sprint, so merely finishing higher than Checo would be enough or sixth if Checo were to win the sprint, etc.

      1. From the top of my head, there are 6 races left and only one sprint (Losail). That is: 26×6 =156, +8: 164 points left máximum. Max is ahead of Checo by 177 points, so he should have clinched it already.

        Obviously I’m wrong, but what am I missing?

        1. Ok apparently there are also sprint races at COTA and Interlagos, that’s 180 points. The Losail sprint should be enough for Max

          1. And that’s not my avatar by the way, no idea where it came from

          2. And that’s not my avatar by the way, no idea where it came from

            That’s the Gravatar image linked to the email account you entered when you submitted the previous comment.
            It’s either your own email and avatar, or you lucked into using somebody else’s email who also happens to have registered a gravatar.

  9. Pravin Panchal
    24th September 2023, 9:38

    What RBR thought difficult to understand, they wanted experience wingman and they got rookie inconsistent

  10. That points table is just embarrassing.

    What are the other eight teams even doing with those hundreds of millions they spend on these cars?

    1. Not betting it all at only one of their drivers.

      1. Whatever their motivations, it’s not working out.

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