Max Verstappen Wins 12th Race of the Season and the Drivers' Championship

This is crazy! To win here in Japan is really special, I feel really proud that we could do it here. When I crossed the line, I didn’t know that I was World Champion, there was a lot of confusion but I thought it was quite funny. The first Championship was very emotional and this time it feels very different, it feels even more beautiful because of the season we’ve had. The teamwork has been unreal, we kept on pushing, kept on believing and kept on improving the car. As a Team we’ve made very few mistakes, you can’t be perfect but for most of the races we were close to it. Working together with Honda has been incredible and of course a lot of my thanks goes out to the Team here at track, back at the factory and everyone that’s been contributing with the Red Bull Powertrains division. Everyone has been working flat out and has a huge amount of motivation. Checo has been an incredible teammate and now the full focus is on the Constructors Championship. Let’s see what we can do in Austin.

I am very proud of what Max has done this season; he has stepped up as a driver. I was fighting with him in the beginning but then halfway through the year he moved into another gear, the way he drove in some races was unbelievable. It is a massive day for the Team, to do this in Japan in front on Honda and with a one-two is incredible. Hopefully soon we are able to secure the Constructors Championship for our Team, that will be massive. I am massively looking forward to the rest of the year. It was a great battle with Charles today, it was nice that we got to race because at one point we though we wouldn’t get to. It was a fantastic fight and we were pushing him hard towards the end, it was so difficult to overtake without DRS but I kept the pressure on, he made the mistake and he got the penalty to give me P2.

It’s been a difficult afternoon. I obviously wanted to finish in the points, so it’s a real shame that I wasn’t able to make it today. I think that I did the best I could today and extracted the most from the car, but the pace just wasn’t there. The whole weekend here has been so exciting still, I’ve really enjoyed my first experience of driving an F1 car round my home track and I want to say a huge thank you to all the fans that have come out to support both myself and the team, especially in these rainy conditions today. Also, big congrats to Max for winning the World Championship – it’s great that the Japanese fans have been able to witness that here today!

We wanted to try something different today, however it’s very difficult to overtake on this track and we tried our best, but at the end it didn’t really work out for us. It’s a shame as it’s a special race weekend for us and Honda, but at the same time it’s great that Max has been able to win the Championship. He has been incredible, winning consistently, and has always been performing at his best and has got everything to be World Champion, so a massive congrats to him, to Red Bull and to Honda. It’s extra special to win the title here in Suzuka, so I’m really happy for them.