Red Bull driver Max Verstappen of the Netherlands celebrates after the Japanese Formula One Grand Prix at the Suzuka Circuit in Suzuka, central Japan, Sunday, April 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Shuji Kajiyama)

Things were on fire on the Formula 1 (F1) racetrack in Suzuka, Japan, over the weekend! Unfortunately, that’s a literal statement as it was errant sparks from the cars speeding by, planks scraping against the pavement, that set grass along the track ablaze.

After the race, one had to look down to 11th place, the first place outside the points, to find a driver that didn’t finish in the exact same position they started in. There were only fifteen passes that took place for position on track. In short, not much really happened.

Some people look at a race like that and comment that the processional nature of the race is exactly why they don’t like watching it. Tracks like Monaco and Singapore are rather notorious for this as cars will frequently finish exactly how they started as they’re unable to pass one another due to the tight and twisty nature of the course.

Suzuka normally has more passing. This year’s race only had one-third of the passes this year compared to last year, something that took a lot of people by surprise. I’m not sold on the idea that this shows the F1 season, with twenty-one races still to go, is doomed to be a series of similarly processional races.

Here are some of the things I noticed in the race that kept me interested throughout:

1. McLaren doesn’t seem to have learned from last year after all. They played things cautiously in 2024 and, though they came away with the Constructor’s Championship as a team, they lost the chance for Lando Norris to compete with Max Verstappen for the Driver’s Championship with that caution.

In Sunday’s race, McLaren had cars in second and third place, both behind Max Verstappen who grabbed a stellar pole position and kept the lead early on. When a team has two cars right behind the leader, they have a chance to try different pit strategies to undercut or overcut the leader.

Undercutting means you pit earlier than the car in front and use the new tires to put in fast laps and pass the car by the time they take a later pit stop. New tires in Japan definitely gave a boost to the driver, and McLaren called in third place Oscar Piastri early.

If that call was to try the undercut on Verstappen, there was merit to the idea. However, they were more concerned with covering George Russell who pitted earlier behind Piastri, trying for his own undercut. At the time, I don’t think they were planning on Piastri factoring in the race for the lead.

Since they went with that strategy, it might’ve forced Red Bull to call in Verstappen after they saw the lap times of Piastri. That means McLaren should keep Lando Norris, their driver in second place, out longer than Verstappen to try an overcut, meaning they stay out longer and do some quick laps using up everything their older tires have to give and have fresher tires at the end of the race after their pit stop.

Instead, McLaren called Norris in right behind Verstappen on the exact same lap. Though they had a slightly quicker pit stop, Verstappen still was able to leave the pits in the lead and never looked back. Norris kept trying, but couldn’t even get within a second of Verstappen to get the benefit of the DRS (drag reduction system) that gives an edge to the car following.

Piastri charged up on Norris’ tail and told the team he had the pace to challenge Max. The team responded with… nothing. They just watched Norris struggle behind Verstappen, never breaking the one second mark, for more than thirty laps.

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella talked after the race saying Norris was trying his hardest. While that’s fine, there wasn’t any reason the team couldn’t have spared a few laps letting Piastri have a go at Verstappen instead. If Piastri couldn’t get a pass done, then they could switch the two drivers back before the end of the race.

Why not give it a try? They wanted to play it safe and keep their second and third places. I can’t blame them for wanting a good point haul and all, but this lack of aggressive strategy is what cost them last year and easily could this year too.

2. Ferrari is genuinely struggling. In the preseason testing and a few moments in the opening races, it looked like Ferrari could compete with McLaren, Verstappen’s Red Bull, and Mercedes at the front of the field, but they’ve had their hands full keeping within viewing distance of any front runners.

Despite a stellar lineup of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton, they haven’t shown any genuine race pace outside of Hamilton’s performance in the Sprint Race in China. The talent is certainly there, but they have neither the luck nor the performance to be meaningful in the season so far.

3. While Verstappen had a masterclass drive to the win in Japan, it is too early to tell if Red Bull’s choice to switch from Liam Lawson to Yuki Tsunoda will pay off. Tsunoda finished the race in 12th position, better than his 15th place qualifying, but well off the pace of his teammate who won the race.

Struggling behind Fernando Alonso who drove his Aston Martin to 11th place, Tsunoda didn’t really impress, but he produced a better result than Lawson managed so far this season. Much like two races really weren’t enough to judge Lawson, one race is hardly enough to gauge where Tsunoda is with the car.

4. Though I’ve already complimented him many times in this article, it needs to be mentioned once again to never count out Max Verstappen. His name is already among the all-time greats along with Lewis Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel, and Juan Manuel Fangio who have all won four consecutive Driver’s Championships. Only Michael Schumacher has bested them all with five consecutive ones, and Verstappen would love to tie him.

No one was giving much credence to Red Bull being competitive at the beginning of the season. Verstappen managed second place in Australia, third place in the Spring in China, fourth place in the main race in China and then wowed the crowd with pole position and a win in Japan. He’s outdriving his car and showing everyone why he is a champion and cannot be discounted from pulling it off again.

Some suggest that Japan showed this year’s F1 cars are struggling to pass one another and maybe the season won’t be as electric as others. I’d say the cars are so evenly matched with one another, there are going to be some races where cars struggle to pass.

Sometimes that means drivers will pass one another over and over again, one corner to the next. Other times, however, the track just doesn’t yield great passing places and the cars will drive in procession.

Don’t write off the season as boring, though. These races have shown anything can happen. In three full races and one sprint race, there have been four different people on pole and four different winners so far. Things are just getting started.

The next race takes place in Bahrain on Sunday, April 13, at 11:a.m. local time.