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Monday, Jun 23, 2025
The Dutchman grimly hung on to claim his sixth victory from nine races this season and the 60th of his Formula One career.
McLaren's Oscar Piastri finished runner-up, 7.1 seconds behind after 78 laps without a chance to overtake on a circuit that often produces processional races, and Ferrari's Carlos Sainz was third.
The victory extended Verstappen's championship lead to 48 points, with Leclerc now his closest rival after Red Bull's Sergio Perez started 11th and finished only eighth.
The fans also paid tribute to Austrian Roland Ratzenberger, who had been killed the day before Senna died after an accident in qualifying. The deadly weekend in 1994 triggered a major safety review, changing the sport for ever.
The German will drive for Audi works Formula One team from 2026.
The comfortable victory from pole position at a Shanghai circuit that last hosted a Grand Prix in 2019 was Verstappen's fourth in five races in 2024 and came after he also won the season's first Saturday sprint.
Verstappen, who becomes only the second driver to win three consecutive Japanese Grands Prix alongside seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher, now has a 13-point lead in the drivers standings over Perez.
It was Verstappen's first DNF (did not finish) since retiring from Albert Park in the 2022 race and ended his run of race wins at nine.
Sergio Perez was runner-up under the Jeddah Corniche floodlights, last year's winner taking the chequered flag 13.643 seconds behind his triple world champion teammate who now has a 15-point lead in the standings.
The BBC said it had seen a report by FIA compliance officer Paolo Basarri to its ethics committee in which a whistleblower claimed the president had intervened to overturn a penalty given to Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso.
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