Confusion and missed opportunities for Ferrari: Suzuka in three acts. Genius, waste and confusion: Suzuka in three acts.

The Japanese Grand Prix certainly didn’t serve to entertain or amuse, given the tremendously soporific race, where approaches and overtakes were practically off-limits for everyone. But it definitely helped clarify more than one point about the current form of drivers and teams. Let’s try to interpret some of the cues seen (and heard) during and after the race.

Max Verstappen makes no mistakes, Red Bull remains consistently effective on track
Max Verstappen’s victory is yet another masterstroke by the number one, with a pace high enough to never be truly under pressure from the McLarens, even though they had more in hand. No mistakes, no smudges, once again an impeccable performance that kept Norris at bay, though he never really managed to be a true threat (unless throwing himself into the grass).

On a track where overtaking is easy, the Dutch driver likely wouldn’t have won, but champions maximize every opportunity and Max seized the door left open by the two papaya-team drivers in qualifying. Then he got off to a perfect start in the race and capitalized on the (truly exaggerated) difficulty for those behind to stay close to the car in front. In this respect, the Suzuka race marks the definitive failure of the attempt to reduce aerodynamic disturbances through the introduction of the current wing cars. In any case, there was already talk of a demotivated Verstappen without the best car, but the first three races of 2025 are actually showing how much of a difference the four-time world champion can still make, even with a car that isn’t the most competitive. Credit must also go to the Red Bull team for being incredibly effective in their weekend track work.

Many claim the Milton Keynes team “hides” during free practice. If it’s true that the Power Unit’s setting is visibly lower than the competition at the start of the weekend, it’s also true that the many driving and stability problems experienced by the drivers are real, visible from the onboard cameras and data. In the end, however, often at the last second and at the cost of changing every possible setting, Max and his team of engineers manage to find a setup that resolves many of the critical aspects and turns a trailing weekend into a winning or nearly winning one—when possible. In Japan, the RB21 was the second-best car on track, likely with a potential between a tenth and a half to two tenths per lap slower than McLaren in both qualifying and race. That gap was nullified through race dynamics, track position, and Verstappen’s driving. From this perspective, we actually tend to redeem Tsunoda’s race. Not that the final result is anything to get excited about for the Japanese driver, but the impression was of a much more in-control driver, who suffered a small qualifying error and in such a locked-up race could do very little. Although Tsunoda finished outside the points, it didn’t seem like the situation was as dramatic as it was with Lawson—we’ll see as early as next Sunday if this impression is confirmed.

McLaren scores points but plays it safe and doesn’t maximize the weekend
As already widely said, the strongest team of the weekend was without a doubt McLaren, but due to what happened in qualifying, Norris and Piastri didn’t have particular chances to reestablish the pecking order on track. Some doubts remain about the strategic choices of Stella’s team—not so much about letting Piastri pass Norris or not, but about the Australian’s early pit stop compared to his teammate. While it’s true that overtaking on track was practically impossible, Norris and Piastri could’ve played a two-against-one game against Verstappen. Instead, Piastri’s stop triggered Verstappen’s stop, which McLaren then mirrored by also pitting Norris on the same lap. One wonders why Norris wasn’t stopped earlier to attempt the undercut, or on the contrary, why he wasn’t stopped a few laps later, considering Verstappen had to cover Piastri’s stop anyway.

The impression is that Woking is terrified of “disturbing” the harmony between the drivers and is making conservative moves, more focused on not favoring one over the other than on attacking those ahead. Moreover, the impression is that such harmony exists only on the surface and that when the fights become more intense, managing the Aussie-British pair won’t be easy. Piastri is showing clear signs of maturity, with the ability to keep a high pace now throughout the Grand Prix, although the near-zero tire degradation seen in this race doesn’t allow for a definitive statement on how much the young Australian has actually improved in management. In any case, the Japanese result feels like a masterstroke from Verstappen and a missed opportunity for McLaren.

At Ferrari, Charles Leclerc salvages what he can, but the statements are confusing
Turning finally to the Maranello team, the entire Japanese weekend was clearly salvaged in some way by an excellent performance in both qualifying and the race by Charles Leclerc. The fourth place secured on Saturday allowed the Monegasque to then defend himself from George Russell, who was slightly faster with the Mercedes. Charles Leclerc also managed to pull away from the Englishman in the middle part of the race, showing that the overall gap between the two cars was still limited—our calculations quantify it between half a tenth and one tenth per lap in the second half of the race. Not much, but it’s still a figure that inexorably places Ferrari as the fourth force in the field.

On the other hand, only Charles Leclerc was able to defend Ferrari’s colors, while Lewis Hamilton had an absolutely lackluster weekend. Mercedes, on the contrary, raced not only with a strong George Russell but with a Kimi Antonelli who delivered a real show of talent with an incredible second stint, being the fastest driver on track, which even earned him the fastest lap. For Ferrari, it’s also worth noting that the gap suffered by Charles Leclerc at the finish—16 seconds—translates to a deficit of three tenths per lap, but from Max Verstappen, not from McLaren, which, as mentioned, had at least one or two tenths more. That would quantify Ferrari’s gap from McLaren at nearly half a second, a significant figure in a race where tire management played no role and it was all about pushing. Beyond the performance itself, there’s a growing inconsistency in the statements from the Scuderia’s three key men: Fred Vasseur, Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc.

For instance, the Monegasque said he was happy to have finally understood this weekend how to set up the car effectively for his driving style, and thus to have been able to “extract” all that was available, expressing hope that the updates expected for the next race in Bahrain would bring more performance. Leclerc didn’t hide his disappointment either, openly stating that this weekend there was nothing more to be extracted from the SF-25, and that everything the car has to offer at the moment is what was seen in the race—at least from his side of the garage. On the other hand, the Team Principal stated that before thinking about updates, it’s necessary to focus on achieving the right car balance, so as to use the full potential of the package. Lewis Hamilton, instead, spoke both of significant work needed to recover performance and of suboptimal ride heights and components on his car that are causing problems for reasons still unknown to the engineers—but which are hoped to be resolved in Sakhir.

The impression, from the outside, is that what Charles Leclerc said, for example, might actually be true—that the car, in its current configuration, cannot perform better than what was seen in Japan. However, this includes the limitations to rear-end setups and ride heights that have already been widely discussed and, therefore, to find competitiveness, a radical solution must first be found (if possible) to this inherent flaw in the project. Thinking about it, the only hypothesis that would reconcile the statements of Lewis Hamilton, Charles Leclerc and Fred Vasseur is that the three, starting from different perspectives, are actually talking about the same thing—and it’s likely that next weekend we’ll find out. The characteristics of the Sakhir circuit, which completely limits the rear end, combined with the fact that tests were already conducted on this track just a few weeks ago, make the next Grand Prix a potentially decisive moment for Ferrari’s season.