Verstappen had gone into the race in Japan with no guarantees about his long-run form, after not finding the perfect set-up for the high degradation characteristics that are a hallmark of racing at Suzuka during practice.
Changes made to his car after a troubled long-run in FP3 had helped improve things a lot, but he and the team were still not convinced that they had got everything sorted.
The situation was made even more complicated by the temperatures ramping up on race day, which helped put an extra premium on tyre management.
But the team says a breakthrough was made in the red flag period caused by Daniel Ricciardo and Alex Albon’s crash when Red Bull made some set-up changes to Verstappen’s car.
These helped address the team having perhaps gone too far with its reaction to its FP3 uncertainty, before Verstappen and his engineer fine-tuned things to perfection at their first stop in the race.
Speaking about the work done in the build-up to the restart, Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said: “I think actually the red flag helped them reset their front wings after they had probably over compensated. So that was interesting.
“Then the car just got better and better through the race. Maybe the temperature helped a little, plus the set-up changes were beneficial as well.
“The engineering team did a great job in tidying up the deficiency on Friday into an advantage on Sunday.”
Source: Autosport