Incessant rains pouring down on the tracks of Suzuka led to a red-flagged race just after 2 laps of racing. The delay, however, could not stop Max Verstappen grab his second world title as he braved rivers of rain on the tracks to win comfortably with a gap of 27 seconds.

The  Japanese GP was the second consecutive GP run under a timer, the previous being Singapore GP. Questions raised from the previous weekend, which only became louder.

The hour and 5 minutes delay at Singapore led to people asking why doesn’t the FIA allow for racing to happen when there’s a provision for wet tires. With the early red flag, similar questions were raised. Drivers at the end of the GP were asked their views on the imposition of race start delays, instead of allowing for racing in the rain.

Charles Leclerc believed that track conditions were alright, the only issue was with visibility. Max Verstappen had a different view altogether.

The now 2-time champion said, “I didn’t want to take a dig out of everyone but I think we need better rain tires. If you saw what we could do in the ‘90s or the early 2000s, with the amount of water on the track.”

“We went from the extreme to the inter today and we immediately went five seconds at least faster and that is just too big. And that’s why nobody really wants to run that extreme,” he explained.

This was not the first time, the Pirelli tires have come under criticism from a driver.

Sebastian Vettel had said after Monaco, “I had a hard time on the rain tires, they were just extremely slow. They are way too hard for this track and even for Imola, they were too hard. It’s just a bad tire.” I can remember days when we could have driven here. But with these tires that’s impossible. The rain tire is basically useless. It looks nice, but it’s actually useless. As soon as you can go on the intermediate, you do that.” (Translated via Google)

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The criticism would make the executives at Pirelli sweat. With their current deal running out in 2024 (after a 1-year extension was agreed upon in 2021), they would have to work on the rain tires quickly or they could risk losing out.

Max Verstappen braved tough conditions to eke out a win

Max Verstappen silenced all naysayers to win his second consecutive world title on Sunday night. While he had good fortune on his side, the victory was a product of his hard work.

Speaking during the post-race press conference, he said “Yeah, of course, it’s a great feeling. Of course, when I crossed the line I didn’t believe that we would have won the title right there because I also didn’t know if we were going to get full points or not but nevertheless, great day.”

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“At the end, we could race and the race itself we could manage really well with the car, with the tires so of course very happy to win here. That first lap I think was really the limit on an intermediate but it kept on raining quite heavily at the time so once the Safety Car came out because of the crashes, yeah, it was too wet even for an extreme tire.”

“If you would have continued like that it’s impossible to drive and I’m in the lead, you know, the cars behind you can’t see anything. So yeah, it was very difficult and they made the right call,” he opined.

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With the title race decided, all teams will race the next 4 GPs with different objectives. Max will be going behind Michael Schumacher and Vettel’s shared record of most wins in a season. Other teams will be trying to experiment with their lineup and car, ultimately targeting next season.