Red Bull Leads FP1 with a Verstappen-Checo 1-2

Despite all of the off track drama in the Red Bull camp. Christian Horner’s words, “Its business as usual” seem to be holding true in the Milton Keynes based team. Verstappen and Checo have both shown a determination to remain at the top of the grid in 2024 after finishing 1-2 in the first two races of the season. Both driver had a poor outing for race three in Australia and its clear they are eager to get back on track in Japan this weekend.

Verstappen Commented on His Race In Australia

“I think we saw already some signs on Saturday where things were maybe not looking like they should have done,” the world champion commented. “Of course, now in hindsight you can say it was coming from the brake caliper. But we couldn’t find any, let’s say, fault with the car which, in a way, it’s of course always bad to retire but when you have a fault, it may be the build spec or whatever, then it’s a bit worse. We’ll just move on from there and learn from it, [hope] that it doesn’t happen again but normally it shouldn’t.”

“Every year is different,” said Verstappen. “Last year we had a bit of a difficult weekend in Singapore. I think, if you look at Melbourne performance-wise, we were quick but we didn’t finish the race, so that’s not ideal. But our car normally likes the higher-speed corners, so hopefully we can show that again this weekend.”

Logan Sargeant Bring out Red Flag

After missing out on the Australian Grand Prix due to a logistical mistake made by Williams F1 Team. Sargeant was looking towards Japanese Grand prix weekend as an opportunity to shine. That however didn’t happen right out of the gate in the first session of the weekend. Sargeant crashed on a hot lap in turn 7 impacting the barriers. The damage seems to be limited to the front wing so we will see if the mechanics can get the car turned around for FP2.

Full FP1 Japanese Grand Prix Results