2025 F1 Japanese Grand Prix Recap & Results

Hello everyone, first off, I would like to say thank you for joining me on my continued coverage of the 2025 F1 season. I previously covered Rounds 1 and 2 on a personal blog before deciding to write my articles exclusively on Hive.

Today, I'll be covering the Round 3 race at the Suzuka Circuit in Japan, which only finished up about 10 hours ago! With that being said, here's my recap of the 2025 F1 Japanese Grand Prix!

Qualifying Recap

Max Verstappen secured his fourth consecutive pole position at Suzuka during the final moments of Q3, narrowly beating Lando Norris by 0.012 seconds, with Oscar Piastri locking in P3 just 0.044 seconds behind Verstappen.

Notably, Isaack Hadjar would be starting 7th after an outstanding performance throughout qualifying, which should be a huge boost to his confidence after a wreck forced an early retirement in Round 1, and a P11 finish in Round 2.

You can read my full report here, which I posted right before the race!

Race Start

Verstappen got off the line a bit better than Norris did, retaining the lead on the opening moments of the race. Norris and Piastri both had decent starts, seeing the papaya pair hold on to P2 and P3 through the fist lap. Gabriel Bortoleto on the other hand seemed to struggle a bit coming off of the line on the hard tires, immediately losing 3 positions before the first turn, dropping from P17 to P20.

After retiring from the first two races of the season, Fernando Alonso stuck his elbows out at the start, quickly overtaking Pierre Gasly for P11 within the first few turns. Meanwhile, the new rivals Yuki Tsunoda and Liam Lawson were starting their own battle for supremacy, as Tsunoda made an overtake on Lawson to take away P14. Both of these drivers will be hoping for a miracle today as they are looking to attempt to finish in the points and prove themselves to their new teams.

Race Highlights

The first radio call came in on Lap 3, when Verstappen radioed in to tell his engineer that his “upshifts are bad” – which wasn't a good sign so early in the race. But if there's one thing we know about Verstappen, it's that he won't go down without a fight. Further back in the pack, Tsunoda and Lawson continue to push as they both overtake Carlos Sainz to take P13 and P14 respectively.

Fortunately for the Red Bull Racing team, Verstappen made another radio call around Lap 7 to inform his engineer that the “shifts are starting to get better”, which meant that whatever adjustments made on the fly had worked, and would allow him to build upon his lead.

Lance Stroll was the first driver to enter the pits, ditching the Soft Tires he started the race with after just 10 laps. Initially starting P20, Stroll had only climbed up one position before coming into the pits, seeing him lose the spot and drop back down to P20 in an unfortunate start for the Aston Martin team.

Meanwhile, Norris was picking up the pace and starting to catch Verstappen after setting the fastest lap of the race on Lap 12. Although Norris was making progress, Verstappen managed to keep a hold of the lead until the pair pitted, handing off the lead to rookie driver Kimi Antonelli.

The battle between Verstappen and Norris was insane, and even carried over into pit lane. Both drivers elected to pit on Lap 22, allowing Antonelli to take the lead, but the biggest surprise came when the two rivals exited pit lane.

Norris was released while he was side-by-side with Verstappen, with neither driving giving any space to the other. The result: Norris went wide and into the grass as they both exited pit lane, putting Verstappen back out in front of the McLaren driver.

Antonelli kept the lead for 10 laps before pitting on Lap 32, where he came out at P6, which is exactly where he started the race. Verstappen took the lead back, with Norris starting to slowly gain on him in P2, while Piastri was starting to gain on Norris from back in P3.

Personally, I didn't notice very many notable overtakes after the pit stops were made, as all eyes were on the race leaders to see if Norris or Piastri could dethrone Verstappen within the final moments of the race. Lewis Hamilton did have an excellent drive to come home in P7, and Tsunoda managed to claw his way up to P12 before the race had ended, earning him the “Driver of the Day Award” by F1 fans.

Final Results - Top 10:

Source

Point Standings after Round 3:

Drivers’ Standings:

Constructors’ Standings:

Looking Forward:

F1 continues next weekend at the Bahrain Grand Prix, where Red Bull and Verstappen will be looking to pick up where they left off today and finally dethrone Drivers’ leader Norris during the Round 4 race on Sunday, and hopefully take second in the Constructors’ standings along the way!

Thank you all for joining me, and I hope you have a wonderful week! See you on the next one!

-Tyler James