The emphasis would have been on the Red Bulls, whatever the result of the Japanese Grand Prix, but fortunately for Christian Horner and Company, Max Verstappen at least attracted attention, but briefly, far from the mess made to the second seat. His weekend was an instant classic on a track that commentators have repeatedly called “historic” and “old-school”. You could almost forget that Red Bull had thrown Liam Lawson for Yuki Tsunoda only two races in the season. For a moment, this weekend was not there.
Verstappen had help along the way. Suzuka facilitated him; His McLaren competitors behind him made him easier. The previous sessions of the weekend were marked by constant red flags due to the fires of the grass, but on the day of the race, the rain was strongly sank. The rain did not stay long enough for a wet time race, but it made fresh track temperatures until the tire degradation was barely a concern – like an additional bonus, the cars run the three hardest tire compounds at their disposal – and the probability of grass lights was zero. The historical nature of the track was obvious in its solitary DRS zone and its narrow width. The two made it difficult for drivers to overcome and transform the race into an extremely polite formality; There was not much race to do.
Suzuka was won or lost in qualification, and Verstappen won it in qualification. Everything he took was one of the greatest qualification towers may ever be; It was certainly up with recent memory with the 2018 pole of Lewis Hamilton in Singapore. Dressed in a white racing costume and a livery to honor Red Bull’s partnership with Honda, Verstappen withdrew the pace of nowhere, in a car that was not the favorite of anyone, and only made pole position on the leader of the Lando Pilot Championship of only 0.012 seconds. Oscar Piastri made an error in the first sector that ended up being costly; McLaren went from a possible lockout at the forefront of two cars stuck behind Verstappen from the race, which quickly turned into two cars stuck behind Verstappen for 53 laps until the end of the race.
It is true that McLaren could have better used the teamwork better to ensure that Verstappen and Red Bull transpire a little more. Theoretically, if a team has two faster cars in competition for a victory, facing a car in mind on its solitary, it should be possible to divide strategies in order to challenge victory. The F1 television commentator and former Formula 1 pilot, Jolyon Palmer, raised the Japanese Grand Prix 2013 for example: Romain Grosjean (in a lotus!) Led two Red Bulls to Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber, but Red Bull divided their stand stop strategy – a car stitched early, the other went for a long time, and Grosjean finally took the end. McLaren’s chosen strategy did not offer any competitive advantage. They put Piastri early to cover George Russell, and later, Pit Norris on the same round as Verstappen, which would only provide the advantage of the Stop differential. On their credit, this gave us the only interesting moment of the race: Norris withdrew from his box almost alongside Verstappen, but ran in the grass trying an overtaking where there was no track.
If McLaren rather opposed Piastri early so that Verstappen covers it, then Norris went for a long time in order to have much fresher tires towards the end of the race, there would have been a greater possibility for a race victory. If they even left Piastri, who looked at Pacier in the last rounds of the race, passing Norris when he asked, there was perhaps a greater possibility. How a lot There remains a question more.
If McLaren was wrong, then each team, Bar Red Bull, did the same. The 10 best qualifying finishers have become the 10 best finish in the race, in order, with the singular exception of Hamilton, passing by Isack Hadjar’s VCarb in the first passage of the race. Beyond the Norris McLaren, as Verstappen said in the charging room, “a fairly expensive lawn mower”, the largest culminating point in the race was already the replay – esque of several pilots enclosing and cutting the same chicane. The 2013 Japanese Grand Prix was a fine example in the Broad Strokes, but it also presented Mark Webber opting for a three strokes; The level of tire degradation during the Sunday race was so low that the leaders of the race stopped at the compulsory stand and then pushed the full pace for the entire second pass of the race without concern.
Verstappen’s new teammate for the weekend, Yuki Tsunoda, could testify to the exasperating experience to try to spend a slower car. Despite excellent training sections near his teammate, he had an unfortunately slow Q2 which cost him the position of the track, on a track where the position of the track is really king. He managed to go beyond the former teammate and the second seat of Red Bull in Liam Lawson in the first laps of the race, but passed the rest of his first pass in the DRS range of another former teammate and second seat of Red Bull in the Alpine by Pierre Gasly, but never close enough in the right corners to pass. In the end, Tsunoda managed to exceed gas via a counter-deputo, using a relatively slow Alpine Stand. These are the only two posts he could win in the entire race.
Verstappen therefore stole the show in one of the cleanest and most executed racing weekends that you could ask far away, and reduced the gap between him and Lando Norris in the pilot championship at a point. And fans voted for Tsunoda, in P12, as a driver of the day.
If the greatness of Max Verstappen has a curse, it is because no Red Bull since Daniel Ricciardo can follow him. A week before the Japan Grand Prix, Red Bull announced that they would restore Liam Lawson to VCarb and promote Yuki Tsunoda for the rest of the year. Lawson had both passed through the Red Bull, although with poor quality shocking performances in both; Tsunoda, during her fifth long year spent his time in Red Bull’s sister team, finally had his call.
But the news was confirmed a few days before, when Erik Van Haren reported that Red Bull returned to their 2019 ways Telegraaf. Speculation has reached a fever. The global feeling among drivers was, rightly, that Lawson was unjustly treated. Max Verstappen, who was very consistent that it was a car problem rather than a driver problem, liked a post on Instagram which qualified Lawson’s demotion of “intimidation or a panic decision”. And in the middle of heckling and chatter, Yuki Tsunoda posted on Instagram, “China where my new sunglasses were a success”, as well as photos of her team, Hadjar and the Horizon of Shanghai – some photos, indeed, showed various members of the team carrying their new sunglasses.
VCARB published a declaration by Laurent Mekies, the current director of the team, which served as a shocking farewell note, in particular in the context of the historically rather tenuous relationship of F1 with the team. He read: “We are incredibly proud that Yuki won his well -deserved move to (Red Bull)! His progress last year, and more recently from the beginning of 2025, is nothing less than sensational. Personally, and collectively, it was a huge privilege to see these progress for all of us in Faenza and Milton Keynes. A racing bull! Bull). “The feeling of his message was reflected in the Instagram publication of Tsunoda after the official announcement, although with a more appropriate lack of capitalization of generation:” I moved to Italy shortly after joining Alphanauri in 2021 and it is my home of the house since.
But perhaps the shade of authentic feeling in the declaration should not be so surprising. Toro Rosso – Alphanauri – VCarb exists in a strange limited space, even for a rear field team. The team does not really have pilots; Instead, he has a list of prospects and candidates and fodder of cannons. Its range is a constant rotating door of drivers whose success would be met by languishing up to a better offer elsewhere, or an often hasty promotion which would remove them from the rocks. In one way or another, so far, Tsunoda has dodged all of this and has lasted long enough to not only give a feeling of permanence and affection for his team, but also to grow.
Unlike the demotion of Pierre Gasly 2019 to give way to Alexander Albon, the notation of the negativity awaited by the demotion of Lawson – has rigorously faced as sufficient to destroy the confidence of any young driver – was somewhat compensated by the pure effort of support and for Tsunoda, carried from his years spent in sport. After his promotion, Tsunoda reported that Gasly, a nearby friend, stretched his hand to offer advice on how to manage the second Red Bull seat; Sergio Pérez, who has little or no link with Tsunoda other than shared suffering, did the same.
Tsunoda on the left of limbo for hell. His performance at his home weekend, dressed in Honda colors, was not particularly cathartic. There was no terrible finish of high points, any more than there was no disastrous race in the rear field. But he probably did the most important thing, which was to prove that he could enter the siege and come out alive. A race down; Only 21 others to do.
