And with that, I think I’m done.

So after a slight diversion in Melbourne, normal service has resumed in Japan, with Verstappen becoming the only driver other than Michael Schumacher to win three straight Japanese grand prix. He retains his play atop the championship standings, with teammate Sergio Perez sitting in second after his second-placed finish in Suzuka.

We had some early drama and a red flag when Albon and Ricciardo went off after just a few turns but once we got things re-started there was no stopping the Red Bulls, who never really looked challenged en route to a third one-two finish in just the third race of the season.

After winning in Melbourne, Sainz did a magnificent job of managing his tyres and used the advantage that gave him to storm into third place as the race concluded, one place in front of teammate Leclerc and his one-stop strategy.

Norris would finish the race in fifth and Alonso in seventh, the latter getting a good view of the battle between Piastri and Russell that went down to the final lap, the Australian arguing that he was forced off the track during the to and fro.

Hamilton followed his Mercedes teammate in ninth and it was a good day for the crowd favourite and Japanese native Tsunoda, who took the final point in tenth.

I’ve been Joey Lynch, thanks for your company today. The tour will return in two weeks time at the Shanghai International Circuit, as F1 returns to China for the first time since 2019.

Here’s how Giles Richards saw things, as Verstappen took out a ruthless win.

The Dutch and Australia anthem ring out at Suzuka. We head the Spanish and Italian anthems in Melbourne but I don’t imagine too many F1 fans have forgotten what the pair sounds like.

Race winner Max Verstappen speaks.

“It was very nice, the critical bit was the start - to stay ahead. And after that, the car got better and better for me throughout the race. Pit stops went well, strategy went well, couldn’t really have gone better.

“The last race was a little hiccup but happy to be back here and back on top. It’s fantastic to win here!”

Carlos Sainz has started three races this season and been on the podium in all three, including a win in Melbourne. And he still doesn’t have a job for next season!

“I had a good race so I’m very happy,” he said. “It was quite tough out there with the degradation, but the clouds came and the degradation got easier so I thought the one-stop might be better.

“I had to overtake today and overtaking isn’t easy, it was tough out there. I knew I needed a very big delta to approach Lando and Charles and in the end we managed it, and I could get that podium.”

Lap 52/53: Heading into the final lap Verstappen is streets ahead, more than 13 seconds clear of second placed Perez. He then has a large gap to the Ferraris. We’re going to have a Red Bull one-two and a Ferrari three-four.

Lap 51/53: So Alonso in sixth, with just over a one second gap over seventh-placed Piastri. There’s then less than a one second gap to eighth-placed Russell. Oh, and with the freshest tyres of all, Hamilton is closing the gap from ninth, it now around two seconds.

Lap 50/53: Russell attempts an audacious move to get past Piastri, with his move down the inside seeing Piastri going off the track after a slight bump. No positions are changed and stewards are examining the incident -- albeit the coverage sees it as more good racing than malicious. Agreed.

Lap 49/53: Tsunoda remains in tenth place, looking like a good bet to take points in his home GP.

Lap 48/53: Russell has now closed the gap on seventh-placed Piastri to less than a second. It’s tight there, Alonso in sixth, Piastri seventh, and Russell eighth.

Lap 47/53: Stroll has been maing some gains and now moves into 11th after going past the both Haas cars. Russell has been closing the gap on Alonso and Piastri, who remain in a struggle for sixth.

Lap 46/53: Sainz takes advantage of the DRS and moves past the outside of Leclerc heading into turn one, Sainz now on track for a 20th career podium.

Lap 45/53: Verstappen has an eleven second lead on Perez, followed by the battle between the Ferraris for third. Norris is in fifth, then Alonso is 13 seconds back and coming under seige for his sixth place position by Piastri. Russell and Hamilton’s Mercedes follow, with Tsunoda follows in tenth.

Lap 44/53: Sainz does get ahead of Norris and now he and Leclerc can do battle for third -- they’re free to race, no orders coming from the Ferrari garage.

Lap 43/53: A big lock up from Norris puts him heavily under the pump from Sainz. With ten laps to go, the Red Bulls lead and the Ferraris are doing their bit to take third and fourth.

Lap 42/53: There’s a yellow flag in sector two because Sargeant has gone off the track. The American has now fallen to the bottom of the race standings.

Lap 41/53: Verstappen leads Perez with what is now over a nine second gap. Six and half seconds is then the gap between Perez and Leclerc, followed by Norris, Sainz, Alonso, Piastri, Rusell, Hamilton, and Tsunoda.

Lap 40/53: Hoping that the battle between Alonso and Piastri will slow them down a bit, Hamilton pits for a set of medium tyres. Any thoughts of a one-stopper from either Mercedes are now just a memory.

Lap 39/53: Hamilton is currently sitting in sixth but he’s being overhauled at a rapid, rapid rate by Alonso and Pastri, who continue to do battle for seventh place.

Lap 38/53: Russell pits again for a set of medium tyres just after Sainz blasts past his teammate Hamilton.

Verstappen leads with an eight second buffer to Perez, followed by Leclerc, Norris, Sainz, Hamilton, Alonso, Piastri, Russell, Tsunoda.

Lap 37/53: Sainz pits, emerging if seventh place, a second behind Hamilton. The youngest driver on the grid Piastri is all over the back of the grid’s oldest driver in Alonso, looking to move into eigth.

Lap 36/53: Perez blasts past Leclerc on the home straight, putting Red Bull in a very commanding position to finish one-two in Japan.

Lap 35/53: Verstappen pits without incident, emerging five seconds back of new leader Sainz but seven seconds clear of Leclerc in third. The call from the Ferrari garage is that they want Sainz to stay out there a bit longer.

Lap 34/53: Perez and Alonso both pit, the former emerging back out behind Norris but in front of the Mercedes. Alonso is back out behind Russell and Hamilton but in front of Piastri,

Lap 33/53: Piastri is the first of the top five to head back in for his second-stop, emerging 12 seconds behind Russell and Hamilton. Tsunoda has gone past Hulkenberg and into the points of his home GP.

Lap 32/53: Magnussen and Bottas continue to battle for 13th, with Tsunoda doing a good job of keeping Stroll at bay for 11th.

Lap 31/53: Magnussen and Bottas are doing battle for 13th at the back of the pack. It’s a 20 second gap between second-place Perez and sixth-placed Leclerc.

Lap 30/53: Verstappen leads from Perez, followed by Sainz, ALonso, Piastri, all on medium tyres. Then come the hards of Leclerc, Norris, Ruseel, Hamilton, and Hulkenberg.

Leclerc gets on the radio and ask who in front of him doesn’t need to stop once again. The response is a simple one: everyone.

Lap 29/53: The top five will all need to pit once more before this race is out but the pack behind them can probably get through to the end as is. Looks like we’re set for a tight, packed run home… at least for every position behind Verstappen.

Lap 28/53: A DRS assisted Norris blasts past Russell with an audacious move down the outside. Verstappen leads from Perez, Sainz, Alonso, Piastri, Leclerc, Norris, Russell, Hamilton, and Hulkenberg.

Lap 27/53: Leclerc comes out of the pits just in front of Russell but the same can’t be said of Norris, who finds himself behind the Mercedes. Russell looking like he’s having much more luck with a one-stopper than Hamilton, back in ninth, is.

Lap 26/53: After doing such an incredible job of managing his tyres, Leclerc runs wide and is overtaken by Perez and now finds Norris right up the back of him.

Come the end of the lap, both the Ferrari and the McLaren pit.

Lap 25/53: Leclerc continues to nurse his tyres magnificently, preventing Perez from getting past him and taking second place off him. Verstappen is once again streaking away in the lead but the Ferrari will only need to pit once more.

Lap 24/53: Hamilton finally pits, with Leclerc now the lone remaining leader yet to make his way through pit lane since the race re-start. The stewards have noted a potential pit lane infringement on Stroll.

Lap 23/53: Perez gets past Norris and into fourth. Russell is the first of the Mercedes to put and emerges ahead of Magnussen -- can he now get through 30 more laps without coming in again? Hamilton remains out there.

Lap 22/53: Alonso is the latest to breeze past Hamilton on his old tyres and, not good for Mercedes, the broadcast is openly pontificating that it’s too late now to change their strategy even if Hamilton wants them to. Norris and Perez are in a fierce battle for third, with the McLaren just able to hold off the Red Bull for now.

Lap 21/53: Verstappen’s fresh tyres prove to much for Leclerc and he blows past him to re-take the lead. Sainz has now gone past Russell, while Hamilton is on the radio demanding that his team change their strategy.

Lap 20/53: Leclerc is yet to pit on his mediums but stays out there, his tyres are now 19 laps old. He’s coming under significant pressure from Verstappen.

Lap 19/53: Sainz is all over the back of Hamilton and gets past him. The Mercedes are on a one-stop strategy it looks like but can they keep the cars out there long enough, with enough pace, to make it work?

Lap 18/53: Verstappen, Norris, and Perez have both gone past Russell, with Leclerc, still yet to pit, still leading the race.

Lap 17/53: After going back Sainz, Perez gets down the inside of Hamilton and moves into fifth place.

Lap 16/53: Verstappen pits and emerges back in third place. Leclerc leads from Russell, while Norris was able to pull of a much-needed overtake of Hamilton for fourth.

Lap 15/53: Sainz and Perez have both pitted. Norris, having stopped earlier, has gone ahead of both. Vertappen leads from Leclerc, both yet to pit, followed by Russell and Hamilton, both yet to pit as well but likely going longer on their hard tyres.

Lap 14/53: Red Bull retains control of first and second, with Verstappen leading Perez. It’s then Ferrari in third and fourth, Sainz out in front of Leclerc. None have pitted yet.

Guanyu has been forced to retire with mechanical problems.

Lap 13/53: Hamilton and Russell are engaged in a bit of a battle for sixth, with the latter now having overtaken the former for sixth. Alonso pits and emerges behind Norris but in front of Magnussen and Piastri.

Lap 12/53: Norris is the first of the leading back to pit at the end of lap 11 and he re-emerges in tenth. Ferrari don’t blink, with both Sainz and Leclerc staying out there. His teammate Piastri then heads into the pits at the end of lap 12.

Lap 11/53: Verstappen leads, followed by Perez, Norris, and Sainz. Alonso is in fifth with Piastri behind him, trailled by Leclerc, Hamilton, and Russell. Stroll rounds out the top ten.

Lap 10/53: On their hard tyres, Hamilton and Russell will be hoping that the drivers ahead of them are forced to pit soon, with the former getting on the radio to ask about the tyre degradation happening to those on the mediums.

Lap 9/53: Alonso is the only driver in the top ten still on the softs but there’s more than a three second gap between him and the driver ahead of him in Sainz.

Lap 8/53: Sainz is on the radio saying that he’s struggling a bit. Verstappen, Perez, Norris, Sainz, Alonso, Piastri, Leclrec, Hamilton, Russell, Stroll. The battle between Piastri and Leclerc is tight, less than a second separating them.

Lap 7/53: It’s now more than two seconds between Verstappen and Perez.

Bottas has also pitted now, while Tsunoda comes in as well.

6/53: Norris has begun the process of asking questions of Perez after the Red Bull inadvertently understeered off the track.

Hulkenberg has also pitted and re-emerges at the back of the pack.

5/53: Verstappen has now opened up more than a second gap on Perez. Norris is third, followed by Sainz, Alonso, Piastri, Leclerc, Hamilton, Russell is back in ninth, and Tsunoda.

It was an awful re-start for Hulkenberg, with replays showing that he lost five or six places after a very slow start.

4/53: Mercifully, nobody else has come a cropper since the re-start and Tsunodo has already gained a place, taking advantage of Russell’s new hard tyres to overhaul him for nine.

3/53: Verstappen has had a flying re-start and is already almost a second clear of his teammate Perez in second. Going to be very difficult to catch him now.

We’re out for a second formation lap of the day. Looks like Hamilton and Russell have switched to hard compound tyres for the re-start, the red flag giving them the impetus to get them out of the way early on.

Drivers are getting back into their cars in the pit lane as we prepare for the re-start.

Race is confirmed to re-start at 2:32 local time, ten minutes from when this post was made. It will be a standing start.

So the confirmed re-start order: Verstappan, Perez, Norris, Sainz, Alonso, Piastri, Hamilton, Leclerc, Russell, Hulkenberg, Bottas, Tsunoda, Ocon, Gasly, Stroll, Magnussen, Sargeant, and Zhou.

Hulkenberg moves into tenth, Bottas to eleventh and Tsunoda down two twelfth.

Both Ricciardo and Albon’s cars have been cleared away and they’re now working on repairing the wall as we get confirmation that stewards have “noted” the collision.

Broadcast is saying that the race will restart using the times from sector one of the race, which was able to be completed before the red flag came out.

More replays showing that Ricciardo had his focus on his left, scoping out the position of Stroll, which meant that he missed Albon coming up on his right just before the collision.

Both Albon and Ricciardo’s cars are now being cleared away before the wall be repaired. The rest of the field is back in pitlane as we await the all clear to be signalled.

Formation lap is complete, we’re almost set to go in Japan!

The top four are all on medium tyres but Fernando Alonso will start on the softs in fifth, looking to make up ground on those ahead of him early on with an aggresive approach.

He’s the only driver in the top 11 to start on something other than mediums, with 12 through 17th also starting on the softs.

Track temperature is apparently hitting 40 degrees just before lights out, the same levels it was hitting five months ago during the 2023 season. That’s going to add the wear and tear on the tyres.

Charles Leclerc will race with a special helmet in tribute to Jules Bianchi this weekend, marking ten years since the Frenchman – Leclerc’s godfather – had an accident at Suzuka that ultimately led to his tragic passing seven months later.

The Japanese national anthem is played as we inch closer to lights out in Suzuka, with hometown favourite Yuki Tsunoda will start from tenth on the grid today

“I felt a little pressure coming into this weekend after our strong performance in Australia, but I’d say it’s good pressure and I’m very happy I was able to get into Q3 in front of my family, friends and home crowd,” he said after qualifying.

“The qualifying itself wasn’t as easy as we expected, but overall, as a team we did a fantastic job. I’m continuing to learn how to maximise the car and its setup to extract the best out of it, and without everyone, the engineers and mechanics, on track and at the factory, supporting me, I wouldn’t have achieved this result and I’m very appreciative of them all.

“Daniel [Ricciardo] also did a great job which means there’s definitely potential to score points, maybe even more than one, so we’ll do our best. The first step is done, and the second one is top 10 in the race tomorrow, which I haven’t achieved here yet, but we’ll put it together and try to have a perfect race!”

Inevitably, there’s plenty of off-track drama bubbling along in the background of today’s race, led by the ongoing saga surrounding Red Bull team principal, Christian Horner.

Here’s Giles Richards’ look at some of the key talking points.

Aston Martin team boss Mike Krack is grabbed by the Sky Sports coverage, says that the team are optimists when it comes to Alonso looking to crash the podium and that we just might see them pursue something “different” to engineer that.

They then move over to Frédéric Vasseur of Ferari, who emphasises how it will be important to have a decent start.

Today shapes as an incredibly intriguing race on the tactical front, with no real clear optimal strategy.

It’s probably a two-stopper, but what kind of two-stopper? A lot of the teams have brought two sets of hard tyres for the race but this doesn’t include the Red Bulls, Ferraris, or Aston Martins -- meaning that we could see a battle of teams with varying strategies of when and how often they use their hards.

It’s around 23 degrees Celsius – which I think is around 70 in freedom units -- in Suzuka with very little chance of precipitation, so that should remove one potential pratfall that teams need to navigate.

One unexpected attendee in Japan is Toto Wolff, who has been compelled to head to Suzuka in response to Mercedes early season woes.

“I had planned not to come to Japan because there’s so much on back in Europe, things to do, but then I felt not coming to Japan was the wrong choice,” he said.

And on the subject of Wolff, former world champion Sebastian Vettel has hinted he could be tempted to make a comeback to F1 after confirming he’d been having conversations with the Mercedes team principal amongst others.

And Hamilton, the driver he’d ostensibly be replacing at Mercedes, seems a fan of the idea.

Logan Sargeant is having some kind of month. If you’re just catching up, the American had his car effectively taken off him and given to teammate Alexander Albon by Willaims a fortnight ago at Albert Park after the latter crashed his car in practice, with Albon subsequently finishing outside the points.

However, a shortage of spare parts and the lack of a backup available until Miami means that Albon will retain Sargeant’s chassis in Japan as his teammate races on the repaired chassis that Albon broke in Australia. These were chassis that, alongside the rest of the car, Sargeant promptly put into the wall half an hour into FP1.

That damage, however, wasn’t of the sort that couldn’t be repaired and the 23-year-old was able to qualify in 19th.

“After what happened yesterday and only getting a few laps in FP3 this morning, it was a pretty good turnaround,” he said. “We put the car in a good place for qualifying considering the limited amount of running and made the right decisions. I don’t think there was a lot left on the table.

“I’m pretty happy with the way I drove but we’re missing a little bit this weekend as a team in terms of pace. Tomorrow will be a bit of a degradation race and how we manage that in Sector 1 will be key. We’ll try to have a good start, manage the race and hopefully that leaves us in a decent spot.”

And again, with all of this going on, it’s probably a good time to check in again on Logan Sargeant Meme Watch.

Perhaps it’s no surprise that Verstappen loves racing in Japan, given that the Red Bull thrives at a frenetic figure-eight circuit where it does a better job than most of protecting its tyres on a challengingly abrasive surface.

Of course, Verstappen isn’t alone in holding great affection for this circuit. I myself love it because it’s been around long enough for me to drive around it in F-1 World Grand Prix on the Nintendo 64, ensuring it will always hold a special place in my heart.

But this circuit has created far more legendary moments that just me going coast-to-coast with a digital version of ‘Driver Williams’ – it’s traditional place as the final race of the season creating iconic moments and tussles that have left an indelible mark on F1 folklore. Here’s Giles Richards on why this course sets hearts racing.

Red Bull has put in place their first set of upgrades coming into this race, including new cooling inlets, and updates to the car’s floor and brakes. Here’s what Verstappen, hoping to join Michael Schumacher as the only driver to win three straight races here, had to stay after putting them to good use to set the pace in qualifying.

“Overall, in qualifying the laps have been very nice and it was a great result for the team,” he said.

“In the last lap I tried to push a bit more and I was gaining quite nicely in sector one, but ran out of tyres at the end so lost a bit of time which was a shame. We have to work on our long runs as we have not been fully happy with these and still feel like we can work to control the balance of the car a bit more.

“It wasn’t perfect, but to still be on pole on a lap that I felt like could have been better, is great. We made some good changes within the car and I really enjoyed Sector 1; around here it is really fun to drive and the car is improving every year, especially in the high speed.

“All in all, the team has a front row start, which is a perfect start to the race tomorrow, but I expect it to be very competitive. It is great to be here, the support is always amazing and hopefully we can give the fans a good race.”

Here’s how Giles Richards saw qualifying yesterday.

Lando Norris knows the reality of trying to chase down the Red Bulls on the front of the grid today but, as he told Giles Richards, he’s not afraid of Verstappen.