Champagne, Confusion and Verstappen's Second Title

The 2022 Japanese Grand Prix was one of the most unusual championship-deciding events the sport had produced in years — not because of a last-lap collision or a tyre blowout or a safety car intervention, but because the race itself was interrupted, shortened, and subject to regulations that made the points calculation non-standard, creating a situation in which nobody in the paddock, including the teams and their mathematicians, could agree in real time on whether the championship had been won.

The race had begun in wet conditions, rain falling on Suzuka in ways that made the circuit — already demanding in the dry — genuinely dangerous. An accident brought out the red flag when a recovery tractor drove onto the circuit while cars were still running at racing speed. The sight of Carlos Sainz's car briefly in proximity to the heavy machinery prompted immediate and justified concern, a flashback to the 2019 Belgian Grand Prix where a marshal had been killed in similar circumstances. The red flag was the correct decision.

When the race restarted behind the safety car, the remaining laps constituted a sprint rather than a full race — under the regulations, fewer than 75% of the planned distance meant only half points would be awarded. Verstappen led and won. The half-points system meant the arithmetic for the championship was different from what the paddock's calculators had been running. There was a period — brief, confused, unusually public — in which Red Bull began their celebration before the FIA's official confirmation that the championship was Verstappen's.

The champagne was opened. The trophy was raised. The confirmation came. Max Verstappen was a two-time World Champion. Whatever the procedural oddity of how it had been decided, the result was not in dispute — he had dominated 2022 with fifteen victories in twenty-two races, the most dominant season since Vettel's 2013.

Max Verstappen won the Japanese Grand Prix for Red Bull, taking victory in the rain and claiming his second World Championship. Sebastien Leclerc and Carlos Sainz completed the podium positions in the Ferraris, but with only half points awarded for the shortened race. Verstappen finished the season with 454 points — a record at the time — having won fifteen of the twenty-two races.

The half-points announcement was met with some confusion and some frustration among fans and media who had expected a clear, unambiguous resolution. The outcome was unambiguous — Verstappen was champion — but the path to that confirmation was not the clean ceremony that championship moments usually produce.

The 2022 season was the first under Formula 1's major technical regulation change, which had introduced new ground-effect cars designed to produce closer racing. Red Bull's RB18, designed under Adrian Newey, was the fastest car from very early in the season, and Verstappen's fifteen wins represented a level of dominance that the new regulations' architects had hoped to prevent.

Charles Leclerc had led the championship in the early rounds, Ferrari's F1-75 quick in the opening races before reliability failures and strategic errors began to accumulate. Sergio Pérez, Verstappen's teammate, was second in the championship — the first time a Red Bull had achieved a one-two in the standings since the Vettel-Webber years. The team's 2022 performance laid the foundation for an even more dominant 2023.

October 2022 was one of the most politically turbulent months in British recent history. Liz Truss had become Prime Minister on September 6 after winning the Conservative Party leadership election — and resigned on October 20, after 45 days in office, following the collapse of her economic programme. The 'mini-budget' of September 23 had triggered a market panic, forced the Bank of England to intervene, and produced a political crisis that ended Truss's premiership faster than any in modern history.

Queen Elizabeth II had died on September 8, two days after Truss's appointment, beginning a period of national mourning and the formal accession of King Charles III. Japan itself had held the state funeral of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on September 27 — Abe had been assassinated in July while campaigning. Against this backdrop of political transition and mourning, the Suzuka circuit welcomed Formula 1 back for the first time since 2019, the pandemic having kept the Japanese Grand Prix off the calendar for two years.

Wet and changeable at Suzuka, the October conditions in Mie Prefecture delivering the kind of rain that makes one of the world's most demanding circuits more demanding still. The race began behind the safety car in heavy rain, was red-flagged mid-distance, and restarted for a shortened sprint. By the final laps the conditions were improving but the circuit remained damp in places. Suzuka in the wet is a particular test — its high-speed section through 130R and the Esses rewards absolute commitment from drivers who have the courage to find the grip that the wet tarmac sometimes still offers.