Charles Leclerc came in third after receiving a five-second penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage to hold onto second place on the track during the Japanese Grand Prix.
Max Verstappen finally won his second Drivers’ World Championship during the race. Leclerc would look back on the season as a missed chance with many points lost due to technical problems, driver errors, strategic blunders, and a failure to convert pole position into a race win. This also meant that it was the end of Leclerc’s personal Championship hopes for 2022.
The stewards felt he gained an advantage for sliding across the run-off at the chicane on the final lap. As a result, he was given a five-second time penalty, which moved Sergio Pérez into second position and gave Max Verstappen the edge in points he needed to win the championship.
Leclerc set out to postpone the Red Bull celebrations, but the lack of speed he had compared to Verstappen caused him to lose ground on the Dutchman very fast throughout the twenty-eight completed laps of racing, with tyre graining being his major headache.
“I gave it my all, but it was a difficult race for us today,” Leclerc said. “We were strong in warming up the tyres in the first few laps, but then it all faded away.”
“Especially at the end, I struggled with front tyre degradation and it was really difficult to keep Checo (Perez) behind me.”
“I congratulate Max (Verstappen) and Red Bull for an incredible season, they’ve done an excellent job and deserve the title.”
Leclerc will do everything he has in the next four races of this season in an effort to get the team ready for a stronger comeback in the 2023 season and a more formidable challenge next year.
“We will use the last four races to work on our race execution, tyre management and becoming a stronger team all-round so that we can mount an even better challenge next year.”
“We’ve already been making steps in the right direction in the past two races and we will keep on pushing this way until the end.”
