What we learned from the Japanese GP

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Following the Japanese Grand Prix, Sky Sports F1 assess the key talking points to emerge from the third round of the 2025 Formula 1 season.

Verstappen issues reminder

Up until the final few minutes of Q3 on Saturday at Suzuka, you would have been hard pushed to find someone in the paddock predicting anything other than a McLaren one-two – in both qualifying and for Sunday’s race.

With Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri having claimed a win – and pole position – each over the first two rounds, that pattern looked set to continue after the McLarens had appeared dominant throughout practice.

When Norris edged ahead of Piastri on the second runs in the dying seconds of Q3, the front row appeared set, but the four-time world champion was still completing his final flying lap.

In the media centre – overlooking the final corner at the famous circuit – there was a gradual realisation that Verstappen was in position to pull off a shock. Then came what can only be described as an awe-struck noise from the crowd in the grandstand opposite, signalling the Dutchman had pulled off one of the most unlikely poles of his career.

Given it turned out that overtaking was near-impossible as cars struggled to follow in dirty air on the high-speed layout, Verstappen’s Sunday task was relatively simple as he faultlessly controlled the race to become the first driver to win four times in a row at Suzuka.

While no one had written off Verstappen’s hopes of sealing a fifth successive world championship, his performance in Japan – and the fact he is now just a point behind Norris at the top of the standings – will at least temporarily quieten talk of a Lewis Hamilton-Nico Rosberg style intra-team title battle at McLaren.

McLaren strategy under scrutiny

During the opening weeks of the season, Norris has repeatedly expressed his belief that the strength of McLaren’s driver line-up gives his team a major advantage over the rest of the grid.

The Brit is correct on several counts, perhaps the most crucial of those being his and Piastri’s understanding of the MCL39 and their ability to assist with finding an optimal setup and developing the car throughout the season.

Undoubtedly, having the fastest car will improve the pair’s title chances, but in Japan there was evidence of how having two evenly matched drivers can also be a hindrance.

McLaren had a two-on-one against Verstappen approaching the race’s solitary round of pit stops but chose to do nothing with it, as they first pitted Piastri from third, rather than attempting to undercut Verstappen with Norris in second.

The leading duo both came in a lap later, and it was only a rare poor Red Bull pit stop that gave Norris a sniff of getting ahead as they exited the pits, before Verstappen shut the door, and effectively locked it for the rest of the afternoon.

McLaren said they stopped Piastri first to avoid any risk of him being undercut by the cars behind, but should that have been prioritised over giving Norris a shot at undercutting Verstappen, or could they have been more pro-active to avoid allowing that situation to develop?

There was a suspicion that McLaren didn’t want to risk the order of their drivers changing and being left in a Hungary 2024-lite situation where they would need to enforce team orders to restore position.

Ultimately, they made it as easy as possible for Red Bull and Verstappen to stay in front, the logic of which Norris questioned after the race. It will be interesting to see how his view on having such a strong team-mate develops throughout the season.

Tsunoda’s weekend in the spotlight

While Verstappen was the centre of attention by the end of the weekend, it was his new Red Bull team-mate Yuki Tsunoda who arrived at Suzuka under the glare of a huge spotlight at his home race.

A whirlwind couple of weeks for Tsunoda saw him finally promoted to Red Bull from Racing Bulls, as Liam Lawson was remarkably demoted to the junior squad just two races into the season.

The early signs were good as Tsunoda appeared calm and relaxed with the media before producing a solid enough showing across practice, but he came unstuck in qualifying as an error on his final flying lap in Q2 left him 14th on the grid and, slightly awkwardly, a place behind Lawson.

The difficulty of overtaking meant he could only manage 12th and therefore failed to achieve to his stated weekend aim of scoring points, but there was plenty of positivity coming from the Red Bull camp regarding his overall impact.

Red Bull gave Tsunoda a significantly more conservative car setup than Verstappen going into qualifying, which was understandable on his first weekend with the team. How the team approach that as Tsunoda gets more comfortable with the RB21 will be fascinating to watch.

While Tsunoda will continue to attract significant attention over the coming weeks, it won’t be anything like it was in Japan, giving him the chance to knuckle down and prove he belongs at the front of the grid.

Ferrari exposed again

Aside from Tsunoda, the individual in the paddock most pleased with Red Bull’s driver swap – and the furore it caused – may well have been Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur.

News of Red Bull’s plans to swap their drivers leaked out on Sunday evening at the Chinese Grand Prix just around the same time Ferrari’s double disqualification from the Shanghai race was announced.

That story – and Ferrari’s overall disappointing start to the season – would have received more coverage had it not been for the unprecedented scenes occurring in the garage next door.

After another extremely underwhelming weekend, which saw Charles Leclerc finish fourth and Lewis Hamilton seventh, the only thing in Vasseur’s favour this time around is that the cars are back on track in Bahrain as soon as Friday, leaving limited time to dig into Ferrari’s issues.

Hamilton admitted on Saturday Ferrari weren’t able to run the car as low as they’d like to following his disqualification for excessive plank wear, and then said on Sunday an element on his car is “underperforming” compared to Leclerc’s.

While we only hear bits of the radio exchanges between drivers and their engineers throughout the race, there were snippets from both Hamilton and Leclerc that reflected a frustrated pairing.

And that’s hardly a surprise, with the team expected to be McLaren’s biggest title challenger having been nowhere aside from Hamilton’s Sprint victory in China.

The question is whether whatever is going wrong can be sorted with setup changes, or if this is going to be the picture for Ferrari until some upgrades arrive.

Rookie resurgence after Doohan crash

The weekend didn’t start very well from a rookie perspective when Jack Doohan failed to deactivate his DRS at the end of the straight approaching the first corner and thundered into the barrier at 185mph.

There was a feeling Doohan had been set up to fail after Alpine ran Japanese reserve driver Ryo Hirakawa, who has been announced as Haas’ reserve driver, in the Australian’s place in first practice, limiting his preparation time on an extremely challenging circuit.

While that decision was questionable, and perhaps motivated by some sort of sponsorship deal, it doesn’t excuse what was an embarrassing “misjudgement”, as the team described it.

After struggling in qualifying, Doohan drove a respectable race, but the huge crash will only serve to heighten speculation that he is going to be replaced sooner rather than later by Franco Colapinto, who will drive in first practice at Bahrain later this week.

On a more positive note, Andrea Kimi Antonelli produced the best performance of his career to date as he took sixth directly behind Mercedes team-mate George Russell, but eye-catchingly appeared to have more pace than the Brit.

While expectations are particularly high for Antonelli, there is little doubt that Isack Hadjar is dramatically exceeding the level most would have expected from him at Racing Bulls.

After overcoming a bizarre and painful episode – full of radio gold – at the start of qualifying where his seatbelt was causing pain in the groin area, Hadjar qualified seventh and finished eighth in the race, scoring his first points in the sport. Richly deserved.

Meanwhile, Britain’s own Oliver Bearman continued his excellent start to the season by claiming the final point in 10th, comprehensively outperforming Haas team-mate Esteban Ocon, who was 18th.

Formula 1 continues its triple-header in Sakhir for the Bahrain Grand Prix this weekend with coverage starting on Friday, live on Sky Sports F1. Stream Sky Sports with NOW – No contract, cancel anytime

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