In 24 races last year there were only 2 disqualifications.

Nico Hulkenberg who got marshals to get him going after spin off the circuit in his Haas. This is a big “NO NO”, and he got the dreaded black flag at the Sao Paulo GP.

The other DSQ was for George Russell. He drove brilliantly to win the Belgian GP. Unfortunately, his Mercedes was found to be underweight by 1.5kg.

Good Grief, 4 DSQ in 4 weekends!! It really shows just how far the constructors are pushing the boundaries of the rules. Unfortunately, just not cleverly enough.

The Chinese GP accounted for 3 of the DSQs. Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) and Pierre Gasly (Alpine) were disqualified for their cars being underweight. The minimum weight of the cars must be 800kg when the driver and his gear are included but without fuel. The other disqualification was Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari) where the plank (skid block) under the car was found to have been worn away too much. We know that Ferrari have had a ride height problem in this early season.

The latest DSQ was also for excessive wear of the skid block on Nico Hulkenberg’s Kick Sauber at the Bahrain GP.

DRIVERS INDIVIDUAL POINTS AFTER BAHRAIN

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.

Rolex official timekeeping role in Formula One which started in 2013 has come to an end. Tag Heuer has signed a deal that starts in 2025 and continues for ten years.

Rolex OUT Tag Heuer IN

Official race timings for races, qualifying, sprints, free practices and any other official F1 activity where timing is required is the responsibility of an Official Timekeeper. This role was created in 1992. The companies that do this timekeeping are commercial companies who provide the timing infrastructure at their own cost for the advertising return.

There have been four Official Timekeepers.

• Tag Heuer     1992   to  2003
• Siemens        2004   to  2007
• LG                  2008   to  2012
• Rolex             2013   to  2024

As can be seen from the above information, this is not Tag Heuer’s first involvement with F1. They have been involved with Formula One since 1969 when its logo appeared on a F1 car. In 1971 they became the official sponsor of the Scuderia Ferrari F1 team. They have also a very long association with motor sport with their stopwatches and dashboard timers dominating the rally world.

Today Tag Heuer have close role with Oracle Red Bull Racing. as can be seen near the right shoulders of all their team.

Pierre Wache Chief Engineer – Performance Engineering

This is not the first time that Red Bull have said thank you (Arigatō) to Honda through the livery on their cars. Red Bull intended to do this for the 2021 Japanese GP which was to be held on the Honda owned Suzuka Circuit. To everyone’s disappointment this race was cancelled due to the covid pandemic.

Red Bull did not cancel the thank you to Honda but used the planned livery at the following Turkey GP.

Honda were due to withdraw from F1 at the end of the 2021 season. Then they were not. And then they transferred their intellectual property to Red Bull Powertrains so that Red Bull could make their own engines. For the 2026 season Red Bull Powertrains will have Ford as their technical partners. Honda will still be involved in this 2026 season but with suppling Aston Martin with engines.

Back to this year’s thank you to Honda from Red Bull at the Formula One Lenovo Japanese Grand Prix.

Enjow the GP on this fabulous Suzuka Circuit.

As stated in a previous post, after two race weekends, that Liam Lawson’s performance was underwhelming. Red Bull Racing have swaped the above drivers between the teams that they control. Yuki will now be Max Verstappens team mate and Liam will comntinue the season at Racing Bulls.

In reality Liam has had a pretty grim deal. He has had all of his GP experiance in cars other than the RB21. The RB21 is by all accounts an unpredictable car that only Max’s skill can contain. Liam should have been on a TPC (Testing Previous Cars) programme which would have better prepared him for the RB21. Red Bull’s dilly dallying over replacing Sergio Perez and hedging their bets on other available drivers untill the 11th hour did not give the time to prepare Liam properly.

I look forward to seing how Yuki performs. It is his 5th F1 season. He has stated to the press, that he will be on the podium at his home race, Japan. I doubt this but still am optomistic about his performance. Let’s see.

After 3 scoring events and 2 GP weekends how do we stand? McLaren are showing that in this early part of the season they are the team to beat. Without the very expensive mistake in the wet in Australia where Oscar Piastry dropped himself from second to almost last. He did recover a bit to get 2 points instead of his expected 18 or more.

The Australian GP was a nightmare with only 14 of the 20 drivers clasified.

Liam Lawson should not be in a potentially leading car, he is completely out of his deapth. Kimi Antonelli on the other hand looks like a future champion.

At this early time in the season how are the drivers doing. Their points gained in search of the elusive World Drivers Chanpoinship (WDC) are as follows per race –

This gives the accumulated points of

Graphically it is-