Japanese Grand Prix talking points: Verstappen shows he hasn’t gone anywhere as McLaren strategy raises eyebrows

While it wasn’t the best way to start a F1 triple header with a fairly uneventful race in Japan, there were still plenty of takeaways to come from the third round of the 2025 F1 season.

From one driver doing way more than he should be in his car to another who perhaps needs to pick up his game, let’s get to the talking points from the Japanese Grand Prix.

Verstappen is doing Verstappen things

Hands up how many of you had Max Verstappen winning the Japanese Grand Prix this weekend?

In an extraordinary performance, Verstappen put in one of the best qualifying laps in modern history to storm to the front of the grid on Saturday, before doing everything he could on the Sunday to take his first win of 2025 and make it three different winners from the races this season.

There simply aren’t enough superlatives to describe the Dutchman when it comes to a weekend like this. It might not have been flashy or exciting like his Brazil win last year, but it was just as impressive when it comes to how his car has been performing recently and how dominant the McLaren pair have been so far this season.

The great champions of the sport have very long resumes filled with races and seasons in which they win in a car that they really have no business doing. And particularly when it comes to a track like Suzuka, a real circuit for the drivers, it only goes to add weight to just how good his victory was in Japan.

If you thought Verstappen didn’t have a chance of winning his fifth title this year, you thought wrong.

Death, taxes and questionable McLaren strategy

There are three certainties in life: death, taxes and McLaren somehow shooting themselves in the foot with strategy.

In Japan it wasn’t as bad as some in the past, and the team itself have defended their calls during the race, but it has to be noted just what could’ve been for the Papaya team.

With both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri much faster than Max Verstappen, surely the right call would’ve been to at least give Piastri a shot at chasing Verstappen for a few laps, given he felt he had the pace to catch him

Five laps later if it didn’t work, you simply swap the driver back. If it does work, then you’ve found yourself a race win.

With that in mind, there is also the question of why not switch the strategies of both drivers to give yourself alternating chances?

It worked a treat with Mercedes, with Kimi Anotonelli proving that clean air and a longer stint on the mediums brought strong pace and put him right behind his own teammate George Russell.

A switch to a similar strategy could’ve worked wonders for either Norris or Piastri, and given them plenty more opportunities to real in Verstappen and make the pass.

It’s early days in 2025, but already those cracks continue to show and could come back to haunt them.

The second Red Bull seat continues to cause trouble

With all the controversy surrounding Red Bull and their sudden switch of Yuki Tsunoda from Racing Bulls to the senior team at the expense of Liam Lawson, the same old story seems to happen in Suzuka.

Tsunoda actually started off well, lapping very closely to Verstappen in the practice sessions as well as Q1.

But Q2 it all came undone, with Tsunoda not being able to put it all together when it mattered, ending up last in the session and behind the man he swapped seats with.

The race itself was better for the Japanese driver, making up positions to finish in 12th, the highest the second Red Bull has finished all season (on track before disqualification). And most importantly, he finished ahead of Lawson on the track.

But it still goes to show that simply putting in a driver with more experience or knowledge can’t make that car work overnight. The fact that Verstappen won the race only adds more pressure, but when you have someone of the calibre of Verstappen in the car it’s always an impossible task to fully compare yourself to him.

Red Bull advisor and power broker Helmut Marko didn’t seem too worried though about Tsunoda not living up to the high expectations from the second seat in Suzuka, saying that he was “unlucky” in Q2 and that overall his weekend was “fine”.

From someone like Marko, that is pretty much good news, meaning that while it didn’t deliver what they would’ve hoped, it still is proving progress for that second seat at the team.

But given the best performer all weekend outside of Verstappen was rookie Isack Hadjar, who scored points in the Racing Bulls, questions will still be asked in the coming rounds should Tsunoda not fully deliver.

The underperforming driver nobody is talking about

All the talk around the second Red Bull seat seems to be masking one driver who has had a pretty poor start to the season by his standards.

That driver is Carlos Sainz, who for the third race in a row has struggled to match the pace of his teammate Alex Albon, and finished way down the order.

In the three rounds so far in 2025, Sainz has yet to beat Albon in either qualifying or the race. While Albon has scored in all three races, Sainz only scored one point in China due to cars in front of him being disqualified.

In Japan he was nowhere near Albon, being eliminated in Q2 while Albon made it to Q3 for the third consecutive race, and then finishing five spots and 34 seconds behind his teammate in the race.

Again, it’s early in the season and Sainz is still finding his feet in his new team. But considering the hype around his arrival at Williams, a lot more was expected of him from the start.

Shades of Daniel Ricciardo at McLaren? Watch this space.

Doohan survives scare to show his worth

A quick final note on Jack Doohan.

He suffered a scary crash on Friday, finding himself in a crumbled mess at the first turn and leaving his mechanics with a lot of work to do ahead of the rest of the weekend.

And while that crash did no favours to him and the pressure surrounding him to keep that seat this season, he bounced back strongly, working his way up from 19th on the grid to 15th, just behind Carlos Sainz and only two sports behind his teammate who started eight spots ahead of him on the grid.

The Alpine is proving to be a difficult car early on in the season, with the team being the only one so far yet to score points.

However, Doohan has proven to be much more closely matched to his teammate than many expected, silencing several critics who said that he could be out of the seat as early as this point in the season.

A solid weekend by the Aussie.

This article was originally written for The Roar. You can read the published version here