Verstappen handed 'Mr Motivator' title after 'inch-perfect' triumph

Max Verstappen has been hailed as 'Mr Motivator' following a memorable Japanese Grand Prix weekend.

Red Bull and Verstappen struggled through the Friday practice sessions but in the words of team principal Christian Horner, the car was "turned upside down", resulting in the four-time F1 champion claiming an astonishing pole position.

Verstappen converted that into a comfortable victory over McLaren duo Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri to close the gap at the top of the drivers' standings on the former to just one point.

"As a team, we work incredibly hard to produce the fastest car we can," said Horner, speaking to Sky Sports F1. "And Max has driven the wheels off that this weekend.

"The engineering team has done a great job of giving him a car that was able to extract the most out of. There's no better tonic or motivation than winning. And this weekend, we've done that. The whole of Milton Keynes richly deserves that.

"And that man, Max Verstappen, is like Mr Motivator, so it was a tonic everybody."

The race proved to be a strategic one, with Red Bull outwitting McLaren despite only one driver in the game compared to the two for their F1 rivals.

After McLaren pitted Piastri from medium to hard tyres after 20 laps, Verstappen and Norris pitted on the following lap, and it was then a case of follow my leader.

Asked whether he would have adopted a different strategy in McLaren's position, Horner replied: "It was difficult because the undercut wasn't so powerful today.

"They tried to dummy us early in the race with a call for Lando but we could see we were going to come out in traffic, so we stuck to our guns.

"They gave Oscar the first pit stop. It was obvious they were going to pit the next lap with Lando, so we just covered that."

The only moment of real consternation during the race was when Norris and Verstappen exited together, with the Briton forced to take to the grass to avoid contact.

"It was a little tight on the pit lane exit but perfectly fair," said Horner. "Thereafter it was a flat-out race. There was no tyre saving in that race. It was just flat out to the flag.

"This weekend, Max has been absolutely outstanding. The hard work was done yesterday, but today again in the race, he was inch perfect."