“CONGRATULATIONS TO MAX”
“It was very difficult and they made the right call,” Verstappen said of the red flag.
“The first time they tried to restart it was not right. Once we got going it was fine.”
Verstappen took the chequered flag but there was a furious battle for second behind him, with Leclerc cutting across a corner while jostling for position with Perez.
Leclerc beat Perez to the line but later conceded that his penalty was “the right thing to do”.
“I don’t have much to say – I made a mistake and tried to minimise it,” said Leclerc, who led the championship early in the season.
“Huge congratulations to Max and Red Bull. Max has been incredible and it’s a title fully deserved.”
Verstappen has won 12 of 18 races in 2022 and thanked his team for an “incredible” year.
“The first (championship) is a little more emotional, the second one is beautiful,” he said.
“It’s been a special year, and you need to remind yourself as these kinds of years you don’t have very often.”
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said Verstappen had “grown” as a driver.
“Carrying that number one this year, he’s done it with a lot of pride,” he said.
French driver Pierre Gasly reacted furiously after passing a tractor on the track early in the race.
AlphaTauri’s Gasly said he could have been killed after encountering the vehicle, which was deployed to recover Sainz’s car.
It brought back painful memories of the tragic 2014 race at Suzuka, when another French driver Jules Bianchi died after colliding with a recovery vehicle in poor conditions.
That prompted a review of safety and the introduction of the “halo” cockpit head protection system for drivers.
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