ROUND 3: 🇯🇵 Japan
FORMULA 1 LENOVO JAPANESE GRAND PRIX 2025
Circuit stats
- First Grand Prix: 1987
- Number of laps: 53
- Circuit Length: 5.807 km
- Race Distance: 307.471 km
- Lap record: 1:30.983 Lewis Hamilton (2019)
- 2024 winner: Max Verstappen
Track Map
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From reddit: “This race could have been an email.”
Pretty dull race unfortunately, great weekend for Max. Seems like the McLarens were competitive but needed Max to make a mistake to really challenge for the lead. The pitstop challenge between Max and Norris seemed to be the only opportunity but I think Norris made a mistake and got greedy thinking he could overtake right on the pit exit and Max would just let him by.
Probably would’ve been more interesting if McLaren had an actual strategy or actually bothered to attack. They could’ve pincered Verstappen with the pits, they didn’t. They could’ve let Piastri attack Verstappen (because Piastri was clearly faster than Norris), they didn’t.
So much for their “two number 1 drivers” statement.
Verstappen / Norris in the cooldown room while showing their pit exit incident:
Haha, that’s very accurate.
Piastri: “That was all the highlights!?”
If not for Hamilton overtaking Hadjar the top 10 would’ve been same as the lineup
I don’t remember this race just a few hours after having watched it
No, they had a parade today not the race.
That was a good nap
Yawn, is it over?
I regret getting up early for that. Nice to see the top 3 stick together all race long but could have done with something to mix things up a little.
Hamilton on hards compared to others on the mediums. Let’s see if it works out for him.
He’s always the one with the odd strategy out.
I guess in the end it did.
This was one of the best victories for Max
they should swap Norris and Piastri
McLaren in a perfect catch 22
On f1tv they recalled the 2013 Japanese grand prix where Grosjean in the lotus vs two red bulls was the exact same situation as today Verstappen vs the McLarens, but RB got the strategy right and both cars passed Grosjean. They pitted one early and one very late, forcing Lotus to cover one or neither, as covering both was impossible. The pitstop window was laps 19-25, Verstappen pitted on lap 22, smack in the middle trying to cover both. Piastri had already pitted so Norris had to go long and pit in lap 25 or 26. But they botched the strategy, Piastri got stuck behind Norris and neither got past Max.
Yeah I also watch the F1TV feed and I see 2 reasons why McLaren didn’t go for that.
- RB in 2013 had internal demarcation between the drivers. Vettel was number 1 and Webber number 2.
- McLaren want to treat the drivers ‘equally’. They don’t have the stones like Red Bull/Mercedes do to execute the best strategy and then handle any driver fallout later. Even when said strategy is justified because it is the best outcome for the team.
Piastri qualified very close to the others with a .3s mistake in sector 1, feel like if he hadn’t made that mistake he’d be the race winner today.
One of my favourite tracks but unfortunately a quite uneventful race.
Have they found out why the grass was catching fire?
Sparks from the plank and floor hitting dry grass. It rained today so the grass is damp and hence no fires today
I’m still at the track. It’s been very dry here all week. Rained the morning before the race, and there’s thunder and rain again here now.
