2025 Japanese Grand Prix

Max Verstappen‘s fourth consecutive Japanese Grand Prix victory last weekend was a little different from the three preceding. It was done without the fastest car.

By late 2022, Ferrari‘s early-season pace challenge had faded, as the Red Bull had been put on a diet and very productively developed while the Ferrari had suffered two competitive blows. There had been an enforced turning down of the power units after a couple of catastrophic failures revealed a problem which couldn’t be fixed until the following season. Then there were the tech directives from Spa onward concerning the mounting of the planks, which hurt Ferrari’s ability to control the aerodynamic bouncing, obliging it to run greater ride heights.

Nonetheless, around Suzuka ’22, Charles Leclerc was able to make Verstappen sweat for it in qualifying, lapping to within 0.01sec. In the pouring rain of race day, they duked it out down to Turn 1, Leclerc marginally ahead on the inside but Max sitting it out on the grippier (in the wet) outside line to take up his position at the head of the pack. It was a similar story on the restart as they pulled away from the field at up to 2sec per lap initially, but then the Ferrari’s front tyres gave out and that was that. Verstappen clinched his second consecutive title.