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F1 Today | Japan shakedown continues with Max, Horner and Wolff
After another Grand Prix in the books, reactions continued as the teams began to leave Japan and the Suzuka Circuit. Christian Horner shared some news about Adrian Newey and Sergio Perez at the Far East and Mercedes continue to deal with their struggle. You can find the best news of the day on GPblog.com here.
Horner says Adrian Newey is part of long-term plans
Following another dominant victory at the Japanese Grand Prix, Christian Horner has underlined that many teams might be interested in signing mastermind Adrian Newey, he implied that the Briton will remain at Red Bull Racing, namely, he said Newey is "enmashed" within the team and he is "part of the team and long-terms plans." After the turmoil at the Austrian team, news came out that many important figures can leave, while Max Verstappen would only stay with the team if the whole band stay together.
It is not certain nor a fact yet, but Red Bull fans can hope the 'ceasefire' will be enough to normalise the situation. Furthermore, Horner also joked about Toto Wolff claiming Verstappen as world champion already after four Grands Prix.
Perez also to stay?
Sergio Perez impressed at the Japanese Grand Prix. The Mexican driver finished in a close second place behind Verstappen in qualifying, and also finished in P2 during the race while making some great overtakes in 130R. For Red Bull, the dynamic of having the Dutchman as the number one driver and 'Checo' being able to finish second constantly is more than enough.
Analyst Peter Windsor was also satisfied with the Mexican's race, and Helmut Marko now told OE24 that they are not going to rush the signing of Perez (if they decided to keep him on of course) even though other teams are interested in him.
Mercedes still struggle
After the Grand Prix in Japan, where the two Mercedes cars finished in P7 and P9 respectively, Toto Wolff came out with some interesting news, saying that his team do not understand the data, and where all the downforce goes. Mercedes also had an interesting post on X (formerly known as Twitter) about their recent struggles.
— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) April 8, 2024
On the other hand, the fans of the German team can still be hopeful to some degree. First, the drivers did sound better about how the car felt during this weekend, and their appereantly, Lewis Hamilton's car was damaged during the race. Secondly, McLaren have already shown last season that a team could have a terrible start to the year, but with finally finding the right path in terms of development, they will be able to fight for podiums come the end of the year.
