"Welcome to the club, I wish you have more luck than I did" - 2-time F1 world champion congratulates Max Verstappen on his second title

Fernando Alonso welcomed Max Verstappen to the two-time world champion club after the Dutchman won the Japanese GP on Sunday to win his second straight championship.

The Red Bull driver is now tied with Alonso for number of titles (2) and F1 wins (32). Alonso, who now drives for Alpine, was asked about Verstappen winning the title.

The Spaniard congratulated Verstappen and hoped that he would have better luck in his career. Alonso said:

"Congratulations to Max and Red Bull. It was outstanding, the job that they've been doing this year. When you win the championship with four races to the end, it means that you did something exceptional, so congratulations! Welcome to the club and hopefully, I wish you have more luck than what I had. But yeah, next year, hopefully, you have more competition than this year, and I'm on that spot as well."

Talking about the race, Alonso said that he was happy that there were some laps that could be completed in the rain-shortened Japanese GP for fans braving the rains. He said:

"It was a very tough race for everyone today. Obviously a long wait and in the end, luckily we put in some laps for the fans. which was the most important thing and good points for the team as well, so overall a good Sunday."

Verstappen (366) now has an unassailable lead over his second-placed teammate Sergio Perez (253) with four races to go.

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I find it actually quite funny - Max Verstappen

Verstappen said after the race that he found the confusion over whether he was crowned the champion a bit 'funny'.

There was some confusion about the number of points awarded for the race. Verstappen didn't know he had won the championship till he was told by Johnny Herbert. Talking about the dramatic sequence of events, the Dutchman said:

"To be honest, I don’t mind that it was a little bit confusing, I find it actually quite funny! At the end of the day, it’s not going to change the result. When I crossed the line, it was not enough, even if you would give full points. So in that scenario, it wouldn’t have changed anything. The main target was to win the race. But once I crossed the line, I was like ‘OK, that was an amazing race, good points again, but not world champion yet’."

He added that it wasn't immediately clear if he had got the full allocation of points in the race. Moreover, with Charles Leclerc crossing the chequered flag just ahead of Perez, and the Dutchman not bagging the fastest lap, his coronation was apparently on hold.

However, with Leclerc docked five seconds for cutting a chicane on the final lap while defending against Perez and the FIA announcing full allocation of points, Verstappen's championship win was confirmed.

“I did my interview after the race," said Verstappen. "And then suddenly my mechanics started to cheer, and I was like, what’s going on? I realised that Checo was second instead of Charles. But I still didn’t know if it was full points or half points or whatever it is – 75%, I don’t know how you do it!"

The 25-year-old continued:

"But Tom (Wood, FIA media delegate) came to me, and he said that I WAS the world champion. So, then we celebrated. And then suddenly it was people telling me ‘no, you’re still missing a point’! I was like ‘oh, that’s amazing, it’s a bit weird’. But then eventually we had enough points. So then we were world champion again!”

The Dutchman is the second youngest two-time world champion in the history of F1.