F1 mailbag: Lewis Hamilton hampered, Suzuka’s snoozefest and why Bahrain won’t repeat

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The Japanese Grand Prix marked the start of Formula One’s first tripleheader of the 2025 season, and it ultimately did not live up to many fans’ expectations after 11 of the 20 drivers finished the race in the same spots they started.

Max Verstappen drove a brilliant race, one that his engineer called “perfection” over the team radio, and his victory closed the gap to Lando Norris in the drivers’ standings to just one point heading into Bahrain this weekend. But the grand prix was rather dull, turning into a one-stop race without much tactical variance. Suzuka is already notorious for difficulty in overtaking, but it seemed even harder this time around.

But plenty of notable moments emerged from the race, such as Andrea Kimi Antonelli becoming F1’s youngest race leader and fastest lap setter on Sunday. Meanwhile, Williams has now secured more points in three races than in all of 2024 after Alex Albon finished ninth. But other teams, such as Ferrari and Alpine, face questions after their underwhelming starts to the season contunued.

Before the next race weekend kicks off in Bahrain, we answered a few of your questions for our post-Japanese GP mailbag.

Editor’s note: Questions were lightly edited for clarity and brevity.

As simple as that: is McLaren underestimating Verstappen? — Raphael C.

Quite the opposite, actually.

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella shared Sunday how, all weekend, “it was very clear that Verstappen was close.” When you look at the timing sheets for practice, the Dutchman was about a half-second off in FP1 and FP3 to Norris, but this is without taking into account fuel loads or engine modes and that Verstappen was very unhappy with his early car handling. One thing to remember when analyzing practice sessions, Stella said, is how “10 kilograms of fuel at this circuit is three tenths and a half, and engine modes can be several tenths of a second.”

McLaren thought it had around a one-tenth-of-a-second or so pace advantage. Then came the flying laps in Q3. Verstappen, Norris and Piastri were covered by 0.044 seconds while Charles Leclerc, who qualified fourth, was 0.316 seconds behind Verstappen’s pole position lap (which also set a new unofficial lap record at Suzuka Circuit, as only race fastest laps officially count).

The question arose as to whether Stella felt Verstappen and Red Bull still needed to make a step or if they were already a full-season threat. He stated that he considers both the Dutchman and Red Bull as full-season contenders, as well as the likes of George Russell, Lewis Hamilton, and Leclerc.

He said, “Ferrari is struggling a little bit now, but we treat all these certainly within the spectrum of the full season, at least until we have stabilized a little bit. Because at the moment we are still falling within the variability of the circuits. We have (had) Hamilton winning the sprint in China, Russell being competitive in the race in China; here (in Japan), we have Red Bull and Max.

“I think we’re still in a transient phase, we’ll have to see how things settle down. Definitely the most important condition to pursue both championships is having the best car.”

Madeline Coleman

Has Lewis Hamilton lost his pace, or is he struggling to adjust to the Ferrari? Or a bit of both? I thought his pitting strategy was going to lead to an interesting showdown between him and Charles Leclerc, but it never came.  — Daniel W.

Lewis Hamilton’s up-and-down start to life with Ferrari continued in Japan as he qualified eighth and crossed the line seventh, only making up a place on Racing Bulls driver Isack Hadjar during the race. He didn’t have Leclerc’s pace through the weekend, trailing by three-tenths in qualifying. As Daniel notes, the longer first stint on the inverse tire strategy didn’t pay off to try and close the gap with a tire delta late on, as the race’s low tire degradation significantly reduced this possibility.

Hamilton made some interesting comments post-race, saying he hoped for “positive changes” in the coming races after claiming a difference had been spotted between the two Ferrari cars.

“Through the first three races, there’s been a bit of a deficit between both sides of the garage on an element of the car, on my side, something underperforming,” Hamilton told reporters. “With what I had, that’s the best result I could get.” He went on to say that Ferrari was “clearly” the fourth-fastest team at the moment.

The adjustment period would always be a challenge, and Hamilton knows that. The China sprint race victory proved that, when everything clicks, Hamilton can still cut it as one of the quickest drivers on the grid. So it’s not a case of him losing his pace at all. It’ll just take a bit longer, especially if that “deficit” he referred to between the two cars goes to explain why he trailed Leclerc at Suzuka.

Luke Smith

Leclerc beat both Mercedes cars at Suzuka, but was a long way off the podium battle ahead (Mark Thompson/Getty Images)

Why is Ferrari off to an underwhelming start? The momentum they finished the end of last year with is completely gone and it seems strange that they aren’t competing more than they currently are. — Jeremy Grafton R.

Of the leading teams, Ferrari has arguably made the most disappointing start to this season. Hamilton’s post-race comments emphasize that it’s the fourth-quickest team at the moment, lacking the pace of McLaren, Red Bull and Mercedes.

It’s a definite step backward considering how Ferrari ended last year, when it narrowly missed out on the constructors’ championship to McLaren. The margins between the leading teams are now so razor-thin that if you’re even a little bit off the pace, it’s hard to get into contention properly. And there is clearly a lot of good in the Ferrari car, as evidenced by Hamilton’s sprint success in China. Leclerc was also able to beat both Mercedes cars at Suzuka.

The Ferrari does seem incredibly setup sensitive at the moment, with a narrow window to unlock optimum performance. Reflecting on China, Hamilton told us on Thursday that if Ferrari had left the car setup alone after the sprint, instead of making some changes to try and make a step forward, he’d likely have qualified in the top three instead of winding up fifth on the grid. He also called it “fascinating“ how Leclerc could go quicker than him in the race in China despite losing his front wing endplate. Both cars were ultimately disqualified from that race due to separate technical infringements.

It’s really a case of Ferrari not quite getting everything out of the SF-25 car yet, lacking McLaren’s consistent strength or Mercedes’ stability. Returning to Bahrain, the site of preseason testing, should offer some decent comparisons and more answers as it looks to get properly into the fight.

Luke Smith

So, as a new fan, are races usually as dull as Japan and China? At least China has the evolving tire strategy to keep things somewhat interesting. — Jason M.

The simple answer is no, they’re not, typically. After the re-surfacing of the much of the asphalt at Suzuka, it went from being a high-degradation to a low-degradation track, which led to a one-stop race as the tires weren’t degrading much. Stella said at one point during his post-race media session on Sunday, “The tires don’t almost degrade at all from one lap to the other. We kept seeing purple sectors and purple laps (indicating fastest times being set by drivers) until the final lap.” Thus, there was hardly any strategic variance. Suzuka is traditionally a track that is difficult to overtake around, and its layout makes it difficult to follow closely.

But F1’s dirty air problem is also significantly worse this year. Dirty air refers to the turbulent air that comes off the rear of a car ahead, which can make it hard to overtake as chasing drivers struggle to control their cars normally in the unstable air. This, in turn, means their tires do wear more, even on low-degradation tracks such as this. The current regulations introduced in 2022 aimed to help close the performance gap and improve overtaking opportunities. The ground-effect aerodynamic operation these cars use was supposed to reduce dirty air and it initially was an improvement. But after four years, the cars struggle to close in on the driver ahead as the teams have fitted ever more sophisticated aerodynamic parts. The more complex an aero part, the more dirty air to produces, as well as making an individual car faster in clean air.

“Long, full, not much happening,” Nico Hülkenberg said Sunday after finishing the race 16th and back where he started. “I spent all my race in traffic too, and it’s not that fun looking at someone’s rear wing and the DRS. It’s so difficult with these cars. The dirty air effect, I think, year-on-year, it gets a little bit worse. And now with the new (asphalt) and the low deg, it’s very hard to do anything.

“I don’t know if there was an overtake.”

Looking ahead to the Bahrain GP, this shouldn’t be as much of a concern. It is a track where you can overtake, between multiple DRS zones, long straights and some slow corners, plus the tires degrade significantly on this abrasive track surface, so there should be more action compared to this past weekend in Japan.

Madeline Coleman

(Top photo: Clive Mason/Getty Images)

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