SUZUKA, Japan — Max Verstappen’s normal run at the Japanese Grand Prix resumed after he recorded a near-perfect weekend: pole position, fastest lap and race win. Stepping out of the car, he looked like someone who had just been out for a morning walk in the park, not someone who had been battling the power of a Formula 1 machine for the previous two hours.
Winning has become so routine for the Dutchman that they must all feel like one these days.
Verstappen’s third win of the year came two weeks after his Red Bull car’s brake opened the door to Carlos Sainz’s memorable Australian Grand Prix win for Ferrari, which in turn gave fans a glimmer of hope that this season may not is as one-sided as Verstappen’s title frenzy in 2023, but a second consecutive race without a win – something that hasn’t happened to Verstappen since July 2022 – never seemed in Suzuka’s plans.
Sunday’s victory was so comprehensive it prompted Mercedes boss Toto Wolff to throw in the towel on the 2024 championship on behalf of the entire 20-race grid of F1’s longest season yet to come.
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“No one is going to catch Max this year,” Wolff said after the race. “His driving and the car are just impressive. You can see the way he manages the tires and overall this season is now the best of the rest.”
It’s hard to disagree. Verstappen has failed to win just 10 of the 48 races since claiming his maiden title at the controversial Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in 2021. Three of those 10 were won by Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez.
Take Sainz’s win in Melbourne two weeks ago and his win in Singapore last September out of the equation and the last win without Verstappen was exactly at this point 12 months ago, at the fourth race of the season; last year it was the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku, which this season has swapped places with the usual October spot on Japan’s calendar.
Verstappen’s thinly veiled threats to leave Red Bull last month around the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix and Wolff’s public interest in signing him for 2025 have at least occupied the press over the past few weeks. But apart from race day in Melbourne, surprises on the track are limited. Verstappen referred to recent speculation about his future when told of Wolff’s comment.
“Toto has been very nice lately, he’s been saying a lot of nice things about me,” he said, laughing. Red Bull boss Christian Horner couldn’t help but mock his old rival when told what he said on Sunday night.
“It is too early to write off the year. There’s still 20 races to go,” Horner said, before adding with a wink: “I’ve learned over the years not to listen too much to what Toto says.”
Whether or not Horner wants to listen to Wolff, most share that view of the season for some time. Some variation of “things would be so exciting if you took Verstappen and Red Bull out of the picture” is the most common argument you hear when people in the paddock discuss the competitiveness of F1 right now.
Ever since Netflix injected F1 with an unprecedented popularity boom with ‘Drive to Survive’, and with the memory of the 2021 title battle between Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton still in the recent past, it has become unfashionable to suggest the sport is in ill health . Certainly the budget constraint has helped teams up and down the pitlane in a better financial position than ever before, although Williams and Alpine running without spare chassis at this stage of the season suggest there are still problems . The field is closer front to back, but the grid is still grouped into three separate groups: Red Bull alone in one; Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes and Aston Martin in another; the rest in the other.
Ultimately, how many people watch F1 dictates everything that follows, and that is dictated by the product on the track. Global ratings fell when Michael Schumacher dominated in the 2000s and again in the 2010s during Hamilton’s unrivaled reign, and appear to be slipping away again. It’s fair to wonder how many of the legions of new fans F1 has welcomed in recent years will turn their backs on the product if Red Bull’s dominance continues indefinitely.
Formula 1 often likens modern racing to the Super Bowl, but the obvious problem with comparing the product to the NFL event is that the winner of the Vince Lombardi Trophy is not decided four weeks after the start of the regular season. Dominating spells have come and gone and will return again in F1’s future, but this feels more extreme than those that have come before.
Shortly after announcing Verstappen as the 2024 world champion, Wolff made a frankly unconvincing case for why fans should continue to watch a season that runs until early December when the outcome is so predictable in April.
“I wouldn’t put it that way because the guy ahead is the deserved winner and I believe we’ve seen the Ferraris closer to him in some of the previous races and I think we can be closer to Ferrari than we showed today,” said Wolff. “So it’s still exciting. I don’t know what the race was like to watch it. I’m just looking at our cars and the split times, so I never have a proper idea of what’s actually going on there. I believe it’s pretty close between P3 and P2 and at times up to P8. I expect there will be some action and we just have to try to put on a better show and ultimately challenge.”
Perez finished 12 seconds behind Verstappen on Sunday, while Ferrari’s Sainz was 20 seconds back in the first non-Red Bull to cross the line. The only reason Verstappen didn’t lead every lap was that the variation in tire strategies meant the drivers pitted against each other.
Ferrari have clearly turned the corner from the darker days of 2022 and can challenge for more wins this year, but Suzuka is a reminder that in terms of race speed they are still a clear step behind. Nor do they pursue a fixed goal; legendary designer Adrian Newey and his technical team will aggressively develop Red Bull’s RB20 to keep it at the forefront.
And then there’s the guy who drives that car to all those wins. On days as routine as Sunday, when he seems to be barely scratching the outer limits of his generational talent or the raw performance of his car, you have to wonder how much Verstappen still has in reserve.
“You can hear the spare capacity he has in the car,” Horner said of Verstappen’s calm radio messages during the race. “He wants to know not only who’s behind him, but … what lap times they’re doing.
“The capacity it has is very impressive. The form he had last year has just come to fruition. He has a very wise head on his still quite young shoulders.”
Expressing concerns about one team’s dominance isn’t a knock on said competitor – Red Bull is where it is because it has done a better job than its rivals. Period. As long as a driver as gifted as Verstappen is in this car, their dominance looks set to continue for the foreseeable future.
However, F1’s success is ultimately dictated by how many people listen. How long it will be before the current situation becomes a more serious topic of conversation remains to be seen, but alarm bells should already be ringing.
