Japanese GP 2025: Verstappen holds off both McLarens at Suzuka

Max Verstappen won the 2025 Japanese Grand Prix from pole position at Suzuka, 1.423 seconds ahead of Lando Norris, with Oscar Piastri a further 0.706 seconds back. It was his first win of the season and his fourth in a row at Suzuka. The top three finished in grid order, and all 20 cars reached the flag.

How Verstappen held off the McLarens

The race was largely decided on Saturday. Verstappen's 1:26.983 beat Norris by 0.012 seconds and Piastri by 0.044, against a McLaren team that had held the pace advantage in the first two rounds. At Suzuka, where the fast corners make it hard to follow another car, track position was worth more than raw speed.

Verstappen kept the lead at the start and held the gap between one and two and a half seconds, never letting the McLarens into DRS range. Their one real chance came at the stops. Piastri pitted first, then Verstappen and Norris came in on the same lap. Verstappen's stop was slightly slow, and Norris left the pit lane with half his car alongside the Red Bull.

Verstappen held his line and Norris ran onto the grass. Norris said he had been “forced off”; Verstappen's version was that Norris put himself there. The stewards saw nothing to investigate, and the order at the front never changed again. Charles Leclerc finished fourth for Ferrari, 16 seconds down, while Lewis Hamilton went long on hard tyres and came home seventh.

Norris vs Piastri and the other duels

The closer fight was inside McLaren. In the last ten laps Piastri, racing on his birthday, closed to around half a second of his team-mate and told the team he believed he had the pace to catch Verstappen. He never got a run. Norris answered by pulling away and eating into Verstappen's lead, survived a scruffy last chicane on the final lap and kept second.

That gives Norris both halves of the weekend on F1 Duels: qualifying by 0.037% of a lap, and the race. He now leads Norris vs Piastri 2–1 on Saturdays and 2–1 on Sundays in our count. Thin margins, but Suzuka went his way twice.

Red Bull. This was the first race after the swap of Red Bull's second seat: Yuki Tsunoda stepped up for his home Grand Prix and Liam Lawson went back to Racing Bulls after two rounds. Tsunoda was knocked out in Q2 in 15th, one place behind Lawson, while his team-mate took pole. He gained two places on Sunday to finish 12th and was voted Driver of the Day, but his duel with Max Verstappen opens 1–0 and 1–0 the other way.

Racing Bulls. The other half of the swap favoured the rookie. Isack Hadjar reached Q3 despite a cockpit problem, started seventh and finished eighth for his first points in Formula 1, losing a place to Hamilton early on. Lawson ran a long first stint and finished 17th, so Hadjar vs Lawson starts 1–0 and 1–0 to Hadjar.

Mercedes. Kimi Antonelli, 18, led a Grand Prix for the first time. He stayed out on his first set until lap 32, ran at the front while the others stopped, then set the race's fastest lap on his way to sixth. George Russell, who pitted early, finished fifth and had already out-qualified him by 0.271%. Their duel stands at 3–0 and 3–0 to Russell.

What it means for the title

Verstappen leaves Japan on 61 points, one behind Norris on 62. Piastri is third on 49 and Russell fourth on 45. McLaren lost the race but scored 33 points and lead the constructors' standings with 111, 36 clear of Mercedes. Every teammate verdict from the weekend is on the Japanese GP duels page.