2025 Japan GP talking points: Max Verstappen’s masterclass, McLaren’s missed opportunity, and is Suzuka the new Monaco?

F1 kicked off its first triple-header of the 2025 season with the Japanese Grand Prix on Sunday, April 6, held at the iconic Suzuka Circuit.

While not a lot of wheel-to-wheel action was on display during the Grand Prix itself, a vintage qualifying lap, questionable strategy calls, and impressive performances from F1’s young guns have all ensured there is still plenty to discuss.

Sports News Blitz’s F1 writer Henry Eccles takes a look at the five big talking points to come out of this weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix.

Max Verstappen’s ‘magical’ masterclass

It is already well documented how challenging Max Verstappen’s Red Bull is to drive, having been moulded to suit the Dutchman’s aggressive style and once likened to a computer mouse’s sensitivity dialled all the way to 100 by his former team-mate Alex Albon.

Because of this, the RB21’s operating window - the ability of the car to run optimally in a wide range of conditions - is very narrow.

It is a setup that has seen Albon, Pierre Gasly, Sergio Perez, and most recently Liam Lawson all struggle with life as Verstappen’s team-mate.

But since 2024’s mid-point, the car has been on such a knife edge that even Verstappen has been struggling to tame his machinery.

At Suzuka, despite a stellar record in Japan, the 27-year-old was faced with arguably the most aerodynamically challenging circuit on the F1 calendar - it was looking like a tall order, even for him.

During Saturday’s qualifying, Verstappen was over two tenths behind McLaren’s Oscar Piastri in Q1 before increasing to over three tenths behind Lando Norris in Q2.

In Q3, despite the McLarens going fastest in each sector of the circuit, Verstappen pulled off a sensational lap to somehow place his car in pole position for the race, only 0.012s faster than Norris in P2.

The lap caught everyone by surprise, even Red Bull themselves, with Verstappen’s race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase using just one word to describe it, ‘insane.’

As for the race, Verstappen used the clean air he had at the front and the circuit’s low tyre degradation to his advantage and kept the McLarens behind for the entire race, in the manner you would expect from a four-time world champion.

It was a weekend that impressed fellow champion Fernando Alonso, who was visibly in awe of what he called a ‘magical moment’ from Verstappen, adding that ‘only he can do it.’

After the race, the Spaniard then drew similarities to his own underdog heroics in 2012, when he dragged his battle with Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel all the way to the final race of the season despite having only the third or fourth quickest car with Ferrari that year.

Missed opportunities for McLaren

They are the reigning world champions, they have the quickest car this season, and arguably the most talented driver pairing on the grid, and yet you cannot help but feel that McLaren still have not quite got everything entirely together yet.

Despite having a clear race pace advantage over the Red Bull, Norris was stuck behind Verstappen’s dirty air throughout, with team-mate Piastri not far behind.

Thanks to a resurfaced Suzuka circuit, which was also colder due to a downpour in the morning before the Grand Prix, tyre degradation - something McLaren have an advantage handling over their rivals - was particularly low and also helped Verstappen to stay ahead.

But despite those challenges, there were still two flashpoints that could have seen a gamble pay off for the Woking team.

On Lap 22, with Piastri having pitted the lap prior, McLaren opted to pit Norris at the same time as Verstappen, even though they quite clearly had the quicker car.

The two emerged from the pit lane side by side in what was genuinely the most notable moment in the entire Grand Prix, with Norris having to cut the grass to avoid colliding with Verstappen before dropping just behind him and staying there for the rest of the race.

It was a decision that left Norris to say post-race that ‘maybe we could have tried a bit more with strategy,’ believing that the undercut - where a driver pits earlier than their rival to gain an advantage on fresher rubber- could have been a possibility.

Team Principal Andrea Stella defended the decision, however, citing both the lack of tyre degradation for everyone on track, as well as the risk of pitting under an unfortunately timed safety car as factors they had to consider.

Later on in the race, Piastri then told the team that he believed he could get past Verstappen - driver’s talk to mean he wanted Norris to let him through.

The Aussie was showing impressive pace, getting to within 0.5s behind his team-mate at times, but McLaren never gave him the chance to put pressure on the Red Bull.

It was another decision defended by Stella, who explained Piastri would have encountered the same issues as Norris in Verstappen’s dirty air.

Sky Sports’ Anthony Davison was left perplexed by McLaren’s strategy:

“At least one of their cars should have used the potential of this amazing beast around this track.

“It’s clear to me that this car is faster than the Red Bull on this track, it has been all week especially on the long run.

“I just don’t understand why at least one of them didn’t have free air today. They’ve sat in dirty air the entire race.”

Ted Kravitz also labelled the strategy as McLaren’s ‘first operational mistake and lost opportunity’ in this year’s championship battle.

And with F1’s clampdown on flexi-wings coming at round nine in Spain - something Red Bull believe will reduce McLaren’s advantage - even small strategic hiccups like at Suzuka could end up making all the difference in their bid to retain the Constructors’ title.

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Isack Hadjar shines, while Yuki Tsunoda and Liam Lawson struggle

It has been quite the turnaround for Racing Bulls’ Isack Hadjar since his tear-jerking season opener in Melbourne, where he slid off the track during the Grand Prix’s formation lap.

At the next race weekend in China, the Frenchman bounced back and qualified in P7, and if it were not for his team’s questionable strategy calls in the race, Hadjar could have easily taken a point or two - he was P11 at the chequered flag.

At Suzuka, he qualified in P7 yet again - a great result but one that does not tell the full story of what was a heroic performance.

During Q1, it emerged that the seatbelts in Hadjar’s cockpit had been fastened too tight, leaving him in severe pain but without any time to get out the car and readjust them.

Instead, the 20-year-old had to pull through what he called a ‘nightmare’ and did incredibly well to get his car into the next stage of qualifying.

Thankfully, the problem was fixed in the break, although Hadjar was picked up by cameras in visible discomfort in between the first two qualifying sessions.

His eventual P7 qualification was converted into a P8 finish on Sunday’s race, deservedly taking home his first points of the season after a bright start to his F1 career.

Since that torrid start in Australia, the Frenchman has out-qualified both Yuki Tsunoda and new team-mate Liam Lawson, following the pair’s driver swap after China.

It was a difficult start to life as a Red Bull driver for Tsunoda at his home Grand Prix, qualifying behind both Hadjar and Lawson in P15 and finishing the race out of the points in P12.

However, there were still some encouraging signs early on in the weekend that the Japanese driver can deal with the tricky RB21 a bit better than Lawson did, having been close to Verstappen in Free Practice and only 0.024s behind him in Q1.

There are also important factors to consider in explaining Tsunoda’s result - the pressure of his Red Bull debut coming at his home race, the challenges Suzuka brings even to the most balanced of cars, and the fact that he had no prior running in the unpredictable RB21.

After the race, Red Bull team boss Christian Horner said he believes Tsunoda will take forward steps in his performance over the coming weeks, now that the 24-year-old is starting to find his feet in the senior team.

As for Lawson, it was a similar story - being bested by Hadjar pretty comprehensively was far from ideal in his return to Racing Bulls, but he did seem more comfortable in the sister car despite a P17 finish.

The Kiwi has also been backed by Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko to recover and fight for points over the next couple of race weekends.

Ollie Bearman steps up for Haas

Much like Hadjar, Oliver Bearman has shone since a tough start at Melbourne, where he failed to get much practice after a crash in FP1, before a gearbox issue saw him miss out on qualifying completely.

After crossing the line last in Australia, the young Brit pulled off a brilliant drive to recover from P17 to P8 in Shanghai, following a double disqualification for Ferrari, as well as Alpine’s Pierre Gasly, helped to get him into the points positions.

In Japan, Ollie backed up one impressive performance with another, getting into Q3 for the first time this season in P10 on Saturday and staying there by the time the chequered flag was waved on Sunday.

It was yet another result that surprised everyone, not least Haas, especially since Bearman was running with an untested floor upgrade throughout the weekend.

While the 19-year-old’s pace is obviously impressive, he has also garnered praise from Team Principal Ayao Komatsu for his level of maturity and technical understanding at such a young age.

“We knew that from last year, this is a big part of the reason why we signed Ollie,” Komatsu said.

“Every time we worked with him, his feedback was accurate, he understood the programme, he understood the objectives.

“Of course he can drive fast, but he really is able to, let's say, digest or understand what's required of him and then execute the programme. So it's great, but we're not surprised.”

Bearman’s performance was also made more impressive by the fact that his team-mate, the experienced Esteban Ocon, heavily struggled in comparison - bowing out of qualifying in Q1 and finishing the Grand Prix in P18, despite taking on the same upgrades as the rookie.

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Is Suzuka the new Monaco?

While an F1 weekend will never fail to deliver significant talking points, this weekend at Suzuka, in truth, was a particularly drab affair.

Apart from singing Verstappen’s praises, Alonso echoed the thoughts of drivers and fans alike - that the iconic Japanese circuit has become another Monaco.

For all its glitz and glamour, the Monaco Grand Prix has been frequently criticised.

The tightest street circuit on the calendar mixed with modern F1 cars' width and weight has made Saturday’s qualifying a real spectacle, but Sunday’s race a little more than a procession.

Suzuka is similarly put on a pedestal as one of the great driving challenges, but its narrow corners and only one DRS zone also make overtaking quite the rarity.

Especially at this year’s race, with the cars on the grid so finely tuned aerodynamically, so close in terms of pace, as well as the aforementioned colder conditions, dirty air in the wake of the car ahead and a lack of tyre wear made passing difficult.

Speak to any driver, and they will likely say something similar to Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg to describe the race, ‘long, dull, not much happening.’

“I spent all my race in traffic, too,” Hulkenberg said after a P16 finish.

“It’s not that fun looking at someone’s rear wing and the DRS. It’s so difficult with these cars. The dirty air effect, year on year, gets a little bit worse.”

Suzuka and Monaco’s places on the calendar are secured until 2029 and 2031, respectively, rightfully so in the eyes of the sport’s traditionalists.

The new 2026 regulations promise to make the cars smaller and lighter in the hope of more wheel-to-wheel action.

But the 2022 regulations were introduced with similar hopes, and in their final year, Ferrari Team Principal Fred Vasseur has warned that the 2025 season risks becoming a ‘quali world championship’ if we continue to see similar races to China and Japan.

Whether or not the flexi-wing clampdown in Spain will improve the racing situation is still unknown, but with three different race winners so far in 2025, many fans should be encouraged that it will still be an exciting season of F1 action.

Part two of the season’s first triple-header gets underway this weekend in Bahrain, with qualifying set to start on Saturday, April 12 at 5pm UK time, and the race due on Sunday at 4pm - all available to watch on Sky Sports F1 and Main Event.

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