A roaring winner and almost resurfaced papaya rules - Japanese Grand Prix recap
- Bella (letstalkaboutspeed)
- Apr 9, 2025
- 4 min read
Max Verstappen on the top step of the podium, McLaren cars fighting each other and a rather interesting pit lane incident - that was the 2025 Japanese Grand Prix!
As the first race of the year 2025, which ended the first lap with no places lost except for Gabriel Bortoleto (Kick Sauber) in 17th, the Japanese Grand Prix already promised a boring race before the first ten laps went by. With Max Verstappen starting from pole position, followed up by Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri respectively, viewers might have expected a close fight into the first turn – but were surprised with a strong start from Verstappen, keeping up P1. Norris had a strong reaction time close to his rival. Nevertheless, the unbeaten 4-time World Champion held onto his position for the whole race, only falling off a few places as his team pitted him in lap 22.
While not much had been happening at the front of the grid, Pierre Gasly (Alpine) and Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) fought closely for eleventh place, with the latter winning this fight.
Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes) cut a chicane during the second lap of the race but since there had been no advantage gained from it, the incident didn’t need to be noted by the stewards.
Race leader Verstappen had been complaining about problems with his upshifting as his team mate Tsunoda overtook the Racing Bull of Liam Lawson in thirteenth, who had been driving as Verstappen’s team mate the two races priorily. Verstappen hadn’t been the only one to complain about gearshift problems though; Alex Albon (Williams) had been telling his team about having the same problems via team radio.
In the 17th lap of the Grand Prix, Carlos Sainz (Williams) happened to make the same mistake as Antonelli priorly, going straight over a chicane. Other than the young Italian driver, Sainz gained an advantage from the incident. The occurance got noted by the FIA but Stewards decided on no further investigation.
Four laps before actually giving the call for a pitstop to Norris, his race engineer told him “box to overtake Verstappen”, though it had only been a strategic call which did not work on Red Bull.
As Verstappen had been asked to pit, Norris got the same call. He had been following closely in second place. With pit stops of 2.2 seconds from McLaren and 3.3 seconds from Red Bull Racing, the reigning constructor’s champion had a time advantage of merely a second. But since their pit is located behind Red Bull’s (pits are arranged to the previous season’s championship results), Verstappen and Norris came close on the way down the pitlane, ending with the latter going over the grass. The McLaren driver immediately insisted on Verstappen not having left him enough space – the other driver had been firm about Norris turning off his pit limiter too early. After both drivers insisted on an investigation by the FIA – which did not happen because there had been no evidence – the Red Bull driver called the move “an expensive lawn mower” later in the cool down room.
Following the incident on lap 17, Sainz had been cutting a chicane on lap 26 again but no investigation followed.
As Tsunoda followed Sainz’s example to also cut a chicane, Albon, who had been once again complaining on team radio – but this time about a bad pit stop – overtook Bortoleto in position twelve during the twenty-eighth lap of the race.
Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari), who hadn’t been to the pits yet, had a small incident of locking up right in front of Verstappen making his way back up to the lead. Hamilton was called into the pits right after, making his impeding on the pole-sitter more unnecessary than it should have been.
After Isack Hadjar (Racing Bulls) overtook Sainz for P9 during lap 30, Williams decided to let their cars switch places in position ten and eleven. Two laps after, the same procedure happened at Alpine; following that, Gasly and Doohan raced in position 15 and 16 respectively.
Starting from lap 40, the McLaren drivers started to race closely. Piastri, who had been driving in third position, said on team radio he “ha[d] the pace to get Verstappen” and wanted a position switch with Norris in second. After the gap got bigger again between lap 44 and 47, Piastri managed to get closer to Norris again as Antonelli in P6 cut a chicane yet again.
Another incident involving McLaren driver Norris had been during the final lap of the race. Like a lot of drivers had done it before him during the Grand Prix, the Brit cut the final chicane. As it happened to Sainz earlier in the race, Norris gained an advantage from the move; but because it was his team mate behind him, there had been no investigation on it. In reaction to it, Piastri titled his move as “cheeky” on team radio.
Eventually, for the fourth time in his career, Max Verstappen won the 2025 Japanese Grand Prix, only loosing the lead during his pit stop. After already being exstatic about scoring pole position on Saturday, the Red Bull driver kept his positive emotions up – saying that “it mean[t] a lot to him” winning the race in Suzuka. Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri stood on the podium with him as they returned to their positions from the starting grid. In total, eleven drivers finished the race on the same position they qualified for.
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