Red Bull’s Max Verstappen has won his second career F1 title after emerging at the top of the troubled Japanese Grand Prix on Sunday morning. Verstappen managed to claim the championship despite the fact that there are four GPs left in the 2022 Formula One season.
The Japanese GP itself was highly controversial as the race was stopped after only two laps due to bad weather. After a lengthy delay, the drivers returned to Suzuka for a restart but managed to only complete 29 laps before the official three-hour race window wrapped up.
Verstappen led the whole race and emerged as a winner, but he didn’t realize he was also a champion crossing the checkered flag. The Dutch driver thought he would receive only half of the allocated points due to the race not being completed in full. However, since the race actually concluded on the track, the drivers were entitled to full points despite the short duration.
“Yeah, it’s really a crazy feeling of course because I didn’t expect when I crossed the line,” Verstappen said. “You could see it slowly happening. It’s incredible that we did win it here.”
With 25 points from the Japanese GP, Verstappen collected 366 points in total and is out of reach for the rest of the field. His Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez, who finished second at Suzuka, is at No. 2 with 253 points, while Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc sits in third place with 252 points.
