What a great Grand Prix that was, there was zzzzzzzzz, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, zzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Sorry woke up mid question. Talking of going to sleep, our 2025 Japanese F1 Grand Prix Result Summary is here and smells good and tastes even better.
This 2025 Japanese Grand Prix Result, Laps that Matter summary, Review & Ratings which gives you just enough to catch up with. With just a hint of cynicism, bias, opinion and colour. The perfect bite sized review for those who couldn’t be bothered, or don’t have enough time.
READ MORE: Japanese Grand Prix-View
READ MORE: Latest Driver Ratings
2025 Japanese F1 Grand Prix Result Race Summary
Didn’t see the race live? Don’t have time to watch the whole race? Here’s where we capture the laps where stuff happened. We write these live as we go, sort of like a minute by minute for the football, but marginally more interesting.
Setting the scene – For all the Red Bull #2 news for the past two weeks, their current number one Max Verstappen pulls a piece of magic out of his car’s rear end and takes pole that looked a McLaren formality throughout the weekend.
The heat, wind, and trackside fires of Friday and Saturday are replaced by much cooler conditions, with a threat of rain low but not impossible, having rained earlier in the morning.
GRID (Starting Order) – VER NOR PIA LEC RUS ANT HAD HAM ALB BEA — TSU 14th
Liam Lawson starts from pitlane.
Lap 1 – Pole sitter Max Verstappen gets away well enough and then provides the chop across Lando Norris without incident. Behind him, and appropriately so in Japan, the drivers were very polite and accidents and incidents were avoided. In fact, the top ten stayed in the exact same order. The only battle of note was between Gasly and Alonso for 11th. Yuki Tsunoda has tsneaked ahead of Liam Lawson in the Red Bull Rejects Shield. Carlos Sainz was also a loser, he has gone from Ferrari to Williams, oh, and he dropped some places from his grid slot.
ORDER – VER NOR PIA LEC RUS ANT HAD HAM ALB BEA
Lap 2 – Kimi Antonelli cut the chicane. That is all.
Lap 5 – So Max Verstappen is over a second clear of Lando Norris and there for out of DRS range, making overtaking unlikely. Lewis Hamilton is able to make overtaking likely and workable as he passes Isack Hadjar for 7th, Albon and Bearman in 9th and 10th aren’t far away. Further ahead there’s potential for a Norris-Piastri or Leclerc-Russell battle. Needs something. There’s only one DRS zone on the pit straight, the price you pay for this magnificent circuit.
Lap 8 – Max Verstappen posts a fastest lap, proving his pole lap was no fluke. Going back through the grid for a token check, Tsunoda and tstill ahead of Liam Lawson who is dropping back and is fending off Carlos Sainz. In good news for Jack Doohan, of which there has been very little this season, he is 18th and ahead of Lance Stroll, who is the ultimate yardstick in mediocrity.
Lap 10 – Lando Norris sets a fastest lap to reduce the gap to Verstappen to two seconds, and give the Papaya Rules a rest. Lance Stroll makes the race’s first pitstop. Alex Albon is complaining to his team via the radio about his shifts. I presume he means gear changing and not that Williams plan a night shift for him. Would be quite hard in an F1 car at night.
Lap 14 – A throwback to the 1980’s F1 coverage as the TV coverage follows local hero Yuki Tsunoda chasing Pierre Gasly for 12th for a few laps. In fairness, there isn’t much else happening. The Tsunoda-Gasly battle is one of the only ones under a tsecond. The TV cameras are back a few laps later.
ORDER – VER NOR PIA LEC RUS ANT HAM HAD ALB BEA
Lap 18 – McLaren decide and then un-decide to pit Lando Norris for new tyres. Maybe some mind games with Red Bull. Maybe the mechanics are as bored watching this race as we are and wanting to stretch their legs. The Mercedes mechanics do get to stretch officially as they pit George Russell who comes in from 4th and rejoins 13th.
Lap 21 – Oscar Piastri pits from third, he had been complaining about something on his car. Luckily Piastri comes out from the pits in front of Alonso in 9th, he puts on hard tyres so he isn’t stopping again.
Lap 22 – Verstappen and Norris pit from first and second. McLaren’s pitstop is a second quicker which puts Lando Norris right on Max Verstappen’s tail as they leave the pits. Lando is alongside but not ahead as they thunder down the pitlane, and Norris simply runs out of pitlane and has to cut across a small grass section, slowing him down and denying him of the lead. Verstappen and Norris rejoin 4th and 6th, with Albon in the sandwich. Meanwhile Kimi Antonelli leads an F1 race for the first time.
ORDER – ANT HAM HAD VER ALB NOR PIA LEC RUS LAW
Lap 26 – Not great going for Williams, with Alex Albon yelling at his team about his car and strategy, and Carlos Sainz taking a second trip across the chicane. Sainz is 9th without pitting, Albon is 13th with one stop.
Lap 28 – Kimi Antonelli looking quite comfortable in the lead of only his third grand prix, with a four second gap to second place Lewis Hamilton. Further back Yuki Tsunoda tskips the final chicane. And Pierre Gasly’s slower-than-others pitstop sees him fall behind Jack Doohan. Only one of them will be sacked before Monaco. Talking of sackings, Liam Lawson is doing a solid enough job in 8th (without a stop). He’d better watch out behind as his team mate just gained a spot and is now 9th.
Lap 30 – Lewis Hamilton pits from 2nd, rejoins 7th. Oscar Piastri sets a fastest lap. A lap later Kimi Antonelli pits from the lead and rejoins 6th. Max Verstappen sets a fastest lap. Just thought you’d want to know. Only Carlos Sainz and Liam Lawson haven’t pitted yet. May as well enjoy the current point scoring position while it lasts.
Lap 34 – Oscar Piastri sets a new fastest lap, followed by Kimi Antonelli setting a new benchmark.
ORDER – VER NOR PIA LEC RUS ANT HAM HAD ALO BEA
Lap 37 – With a lack of on track action, we’ll stick to announcing fastest laps. Interestingly Carlos Sainz gets one while travelling in 16th. Or maybe not.
Lap 38 – Lando Norris is just over a second behind Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri is getting closer to Lando Norris, setting up a potential decent finale to a reasonably dull race. But how would the viewers know, with the TV coverage persisting with Yuki Tsunoda tsniffing out 11th place from Alonso.
Lap 40 – The TV camera have found Oscar Piastri who has found Lando Norris’ gearbox and is under a second behind now, with DRS on offer. The McLaren team go looking for the Papaya Rules book. This could be it for excitement, and a decent marker for the Championship, or at least the mind games relating to it. Given the driver selection, rookie status and hopeless strategy and disqualifications of the other top teams, McLaren will surely win the Constructors title.
Lap 42 – And the radio messages start between McLaren, with Piastri claims of being fast enough to catch Max Verstappen. Lando having nothing of it. The gap remains under a second. This is going to be a fun season by the end. Tense too.
Lap 44 – Lando Norris has picked up the pace and gained a little on Max Verstappen and pulled away a little from Oscar Piastri. Just not by enough to convince you anything is going to happen either way.
Lap 47 – The Verstappen-Norris-Piastri gap moves like an accordion, and sounds just as good, and is as likely to see an overtake.
Lap 49 – Oscar Piastri is so close to Norris now he might burn his face on the exhaust pipes. But so hard to pass in the same car. And driving standard.
Lap 51 – The gaps have become not quite close enough again, so looks like no interesting and controversial finish coming up.
FINAL LAP – Max Verstappen does the job over the final laps and takes victory, and it is quite the win. McLaren looked the goods and looked like only determining the order of 1 and 2 but have to settle for second and third. The first seven places were taken up by seven of the eight top four team cars. Of course the only car of the top four teams that didn’t complete the top eight domination was the tsecond Red Bull driver in Yuki Tsunoda who finished 12th.
FINAL ORDER (Across the line) – VER NOR PIA LEC RUS ANT HAM HAD ALB BEA
Here we go through the field and highlight the very best (Great) of the race, and the plodders, the over-ambitious, the out of luck, and simply hopeless (Grape).
These points get added to our Driver of the Season scores. 5 points for a great nomination, and -5 for the worst or grapest driver in the pack. Then it is +2 /-2 for honourable or dishonourable mentions.
THE GREAT-EST – MAX VERSTAPPEN
A reminder of his superior F1 superpowers. A car that qualified dead last the race prior in the hands of someone else is a race winner from pole position this weekend.
HONOURABLE MENTIONS
KIMI ANTONELLI – Building nicely in his rookie year, albeit in a good race car. Regardless, Kimi Antonelli led the Grand Prix for a while and took the fastest lap.
ISACK HADJAR – Did a great job in qualifying to make Q3 after what can only be described as squashed balls during Q1 and Q2. Solid race craft saw him race and finish in the top 10. No coincidence that he performed so well after the sh!tfight about the other Red Bull number two drivers the last few weeks.
OLIVER BEARMAN – Dragged a Haas into Q3, which is a very good effort. Then raced well to get a point.
JACQUES VILLENEUVE – Was the Martin Brundle for this race and was a welcome replacement. Not as good as Brundle, who is, but good all the same. Better than other North American special commentators that feature on the F1 coverage.
THE GRAPE-EST – JACK DOOHAN
Having already been replaced for P1 despite being a rookie who has basically been told he’ll probably get the arse soon, the last thing Jack Doohan needed to do was trash the car at some stage this weekend. But that’s exactly what he did on Friday, and in a big way. Somehow the teams turned the car around for qualifying. Raced ok to finish 15th, but the crash will probably see the replacements being confirmed earlier than first thought.
DISHONOURABLE MENTIONS
LANCE STROLL – Dead last in race.
YUKI TSUNODA – A tsolid improvement on Liam Lawson’ two other weekends for Red Bull this year, but 12th in the race and 14th in qualifying is right on peak-average Sergio Perez.
Was it a good race, loads of action, a tense ending, a surprise result or DNF, or just a big, fat, snooze-fest?
We rate the big race itself, so we know which races to go back and watch in the off season or one to simply remember the winner for the post season quiz nights.
PRE RACE ACTION (FP, QUAL, SPRINT etc) – 4 / 5
Pre race action revolved around who would drive the number two, which got boring after a while. Qualifying was interesting with Max Verstappen pulling out a surprising pole.
ON TRACK ACTION (RACE) – 3 / 10
It was pretty dull.
ANY SURPRISES? – 4 / 5
Max Verstappen essentially out-pacing the McLaren was certainly surprising.
SEASON IMPORTANCE – 4 / 5
Does this mean that Red Bull are back? Or does the relationships with McLaren become a little more intense.
ENDING – 3 / 5
Exciting enough, but a pass between the McLarens looked unlikely, so felt a bit like fake tension.
OVERALL RATING – 18 / 30
A surprising result more than a classic race.
2025 F1 Season Race Ratings
R1 – Australian Grand Prix – 27/30
R2 – Chinese Grand Prix – 11/30
2025 F1 Season Preview Gear
F1 2025 SEASON – THINGS TO LOOK FOR AND AVOID
F1 DONKEY AUSTRALIAN GP BOLD PREDICTIONS
2024 F1 Season Review Gear
Stay tuned for our Power Rankings from the race soon as it is currently being calculated and will be ready on Monday.
2024 F1 SEASON FULL RACE REPORT HISTORY
