Giedo van der Garde drops 3-word reaction to Max Verstappen winning the F1 Japanese GP

Former F1 driver Giedo van der Garde shared a short reaction in praise of Red Bull driver Max Verstappen securing another Japanese GP victory. The Dutch driver shocked everyone with his stunning lap in qualifying which put him ahead of the McLaren duo of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri for the main race.

The four-time F1 world champion pulled off a qualifying lap for the ages to edge Norris by a mere 0.12s and Piastri by 0.044s to take his fourth successive pole position in Suzuka and 41st overall.

Over the 53-lap distance, Verstappen controlled the proceedings from the front and kept the McLaren pair behind him for the entire race in an arguably inferior car. After the race, Max Verstappen posted a series of pictures from his victory celebrations on his Instagram handle and wrote:

"This one means a lot. What a great weekend for us, we never give up 💪"

In the comments section, fellow Dutchman and former Caterham driver Giedo van der Garde, who had recently been in the news for criticizing Red Bull's driver management leading up to Japan, gave a three-word reaction to Verstappen's win and said:

"What a weekend."

Giedo van der Garde's comment on Max Verstappen...Credits-Instagram

With the race win on Sunday, Max Verstappen managed to close the gap to McLaren's Lando Norris in the driver's standings to one point after three races and one Sprint.

---

Max Verstappen reflects on securing another race win in Japan

Red Bull driver Max Verstappen remarked on a "fun" race for him as he drove home to victory from pole position for the fourth successive year at the Suzuka International Circuit, becoming the first driver to achieve the feat at the track.

In his post-race press conference, the Dutch driver analyzed his race and said:

"Yeah, it was a fun race. I mean, the whole race I saw two orange cars in my mirror, and yeah, especially those last 20 laps, we were pushing quite hard out there. You could just feel the tires were degrading more and more. But you had to keep on fighting it, basically being on the limit. But yeah, it was better than expected, to be honest."

Verstappen also previewed the upcoming Bahrain GP and admitted that there was still work to do for Red Bull in terms of car setup, adding:

"Bahrain is a completely different track, very tough on tires, and tires overheating as well. We still have work to do. But it does show that if we really nail everything, we can be up there. But from our side, we want to be better than just sometimes being up there. So we just keep working hard and just see where we can be at in Bahrain already."

Max Verstappen will also look to make it three in a row at Bahrain in the upcoming weekend, given the Austrian team's dominance in the previous two editions, which yielded successive 1-2 finishes.