The highlight for me of the whole weekend at the Suzuka circuit was Max Verstappen’s extraordinary final qualifying lap.

The top 10 drivers in qualifying were

TOP 10 QUALIFIERS SUZUKA 2025

Graphically

TOP 10 QUALIFIERS SUZUKA 2025

All the talk was about the low downforce rear wing on Max’s RB21 car. The pundits were saying Max would be very fast down the straights but would lose out in the corners.

MAX’S RB21 AT SUZUKA 2025-Pic from Racefans.net

But, when looking at the performance diagrams from F1-Tempo.com a different picture emerges.

FINAL QUALIFYING LAP PERFORMANCE

It was Norris who dominated most of the straights and Verstappen that won on the first straight and most of the bendy bits. Wow, 0.012 seconds difference.

The speed graphs

QUALIFYING SPEED GRAPHS

Again WOW, 0.012 seconds. The circuit is 5807 meters long. At the times that these two drivers covered this their average speeds were over 240 km/h (149 mph). Thats average speed. Max’s average speed was 240.337 km/h with a peak speed of 325 km/h (201.96 mph). Lando’s average speed was 240.303 km/h with a peak of 320 km/h (198.86 mph). If my math is correct and if the drivers were side by side, Max would be 0.8m or 801mm ahead of Lando. Like this!

WHAT 0.012 SECONDS BETWEEN MAX AND ORLANDO WAS

The last words on that qualifying must be what Fernando Alonso said about it. When talking to the TV reporters he said “There is no other driver at the moment that can drive and put it higher than the car deserves. I think it was a magical moment for everyone here.” Later, Alonso when talking to the print media said “At the moment, he’s [Max] the best. He’s the reference for all of us and we need to keep improving to reach that level.”

The Race

Well, it happened. All the drivers went around for 53 laps except lance stroll in his Aston Matin was lapped and did 52. Some reports said there were 15 overtakes on the circuit, some reports say less.

History was made when the front running cars pitted and left Kimi Antonelli in his Mecedes as the youngest driver to ever lead a F1 race.

For excitement and relevance there were two incidences.

The relevant was Lewis Hamilton in his Ferrari overtaking Isack Hadjar in his Racing Bulls for seventh place and earning 6 points instead of 4.

The exciting incident was Lando Norris using his McLaren to go gardening.  When a replay of this incidence was shown in the cooldown room Max quipped “That’s quite an expensive lawnmower”. What happened was that on lap 22, both Max and Lando pitted for fresh tyres. Max’s pit stop was a bit slower than Lando’s and Lando came out almost alongside Max. Max, quite correctly, carried on out to the circuit. Lando hung on beside Max until he ran out of pit apron and ended driving onto the grass.

LANDO CUTTING GRASS AT THE PITLANE EXIT

Was that an unsafe release by McLaren?

For the rest of this race it was a procession. Suzuka is a fast circuit and the drivers relish it. For the fans it is not so good as it is very difficult to overtake on the circuit. This circuit is often compared to the Monaco one. In other words a boring processional race.

The race, to all intent and purpose, was decided by the Saturday’s qualifying. There was only one differentiation between the qualifying and the points earning positions.

POSITION CHANGES AT THE SUZUKA RACE 2025

Next race in Bahrain where there are an average of 69 overtakes per race. We will see then if the lack of overtaking is simply a circuit fact or it is the current state of the speed convergence of the cars at the end of stable regulations.