A very dull race Some of the greatest moments in Formula 1 history has happened at the Suzuka race track in Japan including the Prost vs Senna battles of the late 80s and early 90s. The 2025 race will not be added to this list. Apart from almost collision with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and McLaren’s Lando Norris as they came out of the pit lane, there was nothing of real excitement on the track. 11 drivers finished in the same position as they started the race. There was only 15 overtakes during the race and most of these happened at the back of the grid.
Impressive weekend for the world champion The first two races of the season in Australia and China were all about the two McLarens but Verstappen displayed at Suzuka he is well and truly in this World Championship fight. On Saturday in qualified the car at the front of the grid, 0.012 seconds ahead of Norris and on Sunday he wasn’t challenged by either Norris and his teammate Oscar Piastri. Verstappen is the first driver to win four consecutive Japanese Grand Prix.
After the race, Principal of Red Bull Racing Christian Horner spoke with F1 Sky Sports about Verstappen’s performance.
“Max, without any doubt, is the best driver in the world currently.”
Verstappen is second in the world championship, only one point behind Norris.
Still big issues at Red Bull The excitement of Verstappen’s weekend couldn’t hide the continued disappointment with the second drivers seat at Red Bull. The second seat at Red Bull has been the biggest talking point in F1 season. Liam Lawson was to partner Verstappen for the 2025 season but after only two races Red Bull announced that Racing Bull driver Yuki Tsunoda would replace Lawson at Red Bull and Lawson would drive for Racing Bull.
Lawson’s struggled to make an impression at both Australia and China scoring no points. In China Lawson qualified for both the sprint race and race in last position and finished the race in 15.
Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner spoke about the reasons behind the swap.
“We have a duty of care to protect and develop Liam and together, we see that after such a difficult start, it makes sense to act quickly so Liam can gain experience.”
In qualifying, both drivers were knocked out in Q2 with Lawson finishing one position above Tsunoda in 14. They both moved up one position on the starting grid with William’s Carlos Sainz given a three grid penalty. During the race Tsunoda was able to climb up two positions which should be seen as a good result when over half the drivers finished in the same position as they started but for Red Bull it was still two positions out of the points. In the constructors championship Red Bull sit in third in the constructors championship with 61 points, Verstappen has all of them.
Lawson had a race to forget, finishing in 17. Lawson spoke with the F1.com after the race.
“It’s been a pretty crazy few weeks and months, I just want to get back into the groove and get racing. We get to go again next week with a new style of track, so we’ll keep chipping away.”
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