Japanese GP conclusions: Verstappen’s Alonso-esque rampage, McLaren tactics, the real Doohan mistake

Red Bull driver Max Verstappen claimed his first victory of the F1 2025 season at the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka.

Verstappen converted a stunning pole position into a fine win with McLaren drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri finishing second and third respectively. Here are our conclusions from Japan…

Max Verstappen is channelling the spirit of 2012-spec Fernando Alonso

Fernando Alonso has been around for long enough that he knows a great lap, driven by a great driver, when he sees one.

And for the second time in the last four years, a lap by Max Verstappen left him in awe on Saturday at Suzuka.

It was Alonso on whom a television camera was trained throughout Verstappen’s pole attempt, remembered as The Greatest Lap That Never Was, at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix in 2021, Fernando’s eyes on stalks above his blue facemask – this was during those times – as Max launched his fabled missile attack on the Jeddah circuit.

It just happened to be Alonso, already out in 13th place just as he was back then, once again in the TV pen to react live and uncut as Verstappen set off on his latest rampage to seize pole position from the unsuspecting McLarens in Q3 on Saturday.

It is not like Alonso, someone who always regarded Adrian Newey, not Sebastian Vettel, as his greatest threat during his Ferrari career, to willingly shower his rivals with undue praise and recognition.

Yet so startling was Verstappen’s Q3 lap in Japan that he couldn’t help but break into a smile and bow before Max.

“Only he can do it,” Alonso told the TV crew in a clip circulating widely on social media.

“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.”

He later told the written media: “At the moment, he’s the best. He’s the reference for all of us and we need to keep improving to reach that level.”

Coming from him, it was quite the compliment.

It isn’t so long ago, after all, that folk would speak of Fernando himself, regarded as the most complete driver around for so much of his career, in those same terms.

In a sport in which bogus bromances – CarLando, Carbono (the Williams version) and Ferrari’s new 16:44 era – run riot in the era of corporate kindness, the bond between Verstappen and Alonso has always stood out as more authentic than most.

There is a genuine and mutual respect between them, rooted not only in their shared love of all things motor racing but in their performances and personalities too.

Almost certainly they see large elements of themselves – the ability, the spirit, the refreshingly old-school attitude, that same competitive ferocity and restless ambition – in each other.

Game recognises game.

The genius of Max Verstappen and Fernando Alonso

👉 The big Max Verstappen question: Can any driver stop him?

👉 Revealed: Fernando Alonso’s secret weapon in battles with F1 rivals

This season marks 13 years since Alonso stitched together arguably the most complete body of work ever seen in this sport, hauling one of the least competitive, badly born Ferraris of recent memory to within an inch of the World Championship in 2012.

The greatest individual performance over the course of a season? It is hard to think of many better.

Alonso so clearly transcended the level of his car so often that year, and to such an outrageous degree, that even now it still feels unjust that he was not rewarded with the third title he has come no closer to winning in the ensuing years.

The early evidence of this season indicates that Verstappen’s 2025 could come very close to – potentially surpass – Alonso’s 2012, raging against the limitations of his Red Bull to bend the season to his will through the sheer formidable force of his determination.

It should send a chill through the spine of all at McLaren that after Red Bull’s least competitive start to a season in years, one that resulted in the team holding some sort of crisis meeting after China for Max to air his concerns with the RB21, he still sits just a point off the lead of the World Championship with three races completed.

Crisis, what crisis?

Drivers of the calibre of Verstappen and 2012-spec Alonso have the extraordinary ability to conceal every last crack in a car and a team and make anything – everything – seem possible.

Max shouldn’t really be in contention to win a fifth title this year. Not if the raw performance pattern of the first three races is any clue to how the rest of the season will unfold.

But as his kindred spirit Fernando says: if anyone can pull this off, he can.

The crucial 2025 context behind McLaren’s strategic caution

The temptation is to put this one down as another McLaren misdemeanour.

Another missed opportunity. Another race they should have won but found some way to lose. Yet more proof that McLaren and their drivers lack the agility, the poise and the ruthlessness of Red Bull and Max Verstappen.

And maybe all of that is true. It is hard to argue against it, certainly.

Yet to view it purely through that same-old-McLaren prism is to fail to appreciate the very different situation facing the team this year compared to last.

In a season like this, when the battle for the World Championship is likely to come down to a direct fight between Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, every single decision McLaren make has the potential to carry wide-reaching, long-lasting, potentially even title-deciding consequences.

It is a highly delicate situation, one in which a driver’s self interest and competitive paranoia could so easily clash with the aspirations of the team if not managed with great care.

So, sometimes, it is better to make no decision at all, stay out of it and, for better or worse, let things play out organically instead.

Let nature take its course – even if a commitment to playing completely fair occasionally comes to the team’s own cost; even if the mistakes at Suzuka seemed particularly glaring.

When Piastri became the first of the leaders to pit on lap 20, and Verstappen responded at the end of the next, there was an opportunity for Norris to go long and take advantage of the tyre-pleasing clean air through all those long, high-speed corners.

The trouble with splitting strategies, however, is that there is always a right decision and a wrong decision. A winner and a loser.

One driver was always going to be on the wrong side of it and feel hard done by at the end of the race, especially so after McLaren had taken the unusual step of giving the second driver pit-stop priority (a move intended to protect Piastri from George Russell, who had pulled the trigger a lap earlier).

Likewise, when Piastri was applying pressure on Norris in the final laps, what exactly were McLaren meant to do?

Tell them to swap places and you’ve just taken points out of Lando’s hands and presented them to Oscar. And who’s to know how important those points might be in Abu Dhabi in December?

Ask them to swap positions on the proviso that Piastri will give the place back to Norris at the end if he can’t get Max?

Now that – putting the power in the hands of two drivers in direct competition – is just asking for trouble.

The experience of Hungary last year, and the public humiliation McLaren somehow found in the achievement of a one-two finish, left scars the pit wall won’t easily forget when it comes to scenarios like this.

And heaven forbid that Oscar ignores the request to swap back and keeps second place all to himself. Then all hell will break loose.

Far from exposing McLaren’s lingering weaknesses compared to Red Bull, then, this race seemed to underline the contrasting philosophies of both teams.

Whereas Max has long been the point around which Red Bull’s entire world revolves, so much so that tough decisions of this nature have long ceased to be a consideration, McLaren have to make – and be seen to make – every effort to satisfy two drivers of equal talent, potential and opportunity.

Every move McLaren made – or didn’t make – at Suzuka screamed that this is a team thinking of the long term and prepared to sacrifice the occasional battle for the sake of ultimately winning the war.

And as they strive to prevent the rivalry between their drivers from becoming destructive in what is bound to be a long season with numerous potential flashpoints, finishing second and third in the Japanese Grand Prix to an inspired Verstappen is a relatively small price to pay.

Max, they will reason among themselves after Suzuka, will not be able to do this every week. Surely.

He can’t possibly…can he?

It is as though McLaren are banking on the car’s inherent pace advantage over the Red Bull telling over the next few months, gradually eroding Verstappen’s resistance – however stubborn it may be right now – to eventually leave a straight battle between Norris and Piastri with no need for any interference from above.

With Max capable of magic like this, though, it would be a bold assumption to make…

Alpine are in the process of correcting a mistake with Jack Doohan

The biggest error of last year’s driver market?

Without question, it came over at Alpine and the decision to sign Jack Doohan.

Not that it seemed that way at the time. Not straight away at least. In fact, it was quite understandable.

Alpine, you’ll recall, had just failed in their last-minute attempt to steal Carlos Sainz from under the noses of Williams, whose move from Ferrari was announced on the first day of the summer break.

And with no compelling alternative left on the market – in the fashion business that is Formula 1 everyone had long decided that Valtteri Bottas, on his way out of Sauber even if he did not yet know it for certain, was so 2019 – the team decided to promote from within.

Why not give it to Jack? He’s paid his dues, served his time as a reserve driver and done the job well enough.

And besides, Alpine will be treating next season as a transition year anyway, so what’s the worst that could happen?

And so Doohan was confirmed as Esteban Ocon’s replacement for 2025 on the Friday of last year’s Dutch Grand Prix.

The problem?

It came just four days – four days – before Franco Colapinto graduated to a race seat with Williams.

If only Alpine had waited just a few weeks longer, just in case something else unexpected happened in last year’s silliest of silly seasons, Colapinto would have got the 2025 race seat his best performances for Williams merited and everyone would have come away happy.

There was simply no need for Alpine to commit to Doohan as soon as they did.

And what we have witnessed pretty much ever since the moment Doohan was signed is Alpine desperately trying to reverse out of the decision, recently revealed by Oliver Oakes to have been made prior to his appointment as team principal.

It has resulted in the uneasy situation of Doohan being undermined every step of the way, crucified by those – Alpine’s executive adviser Flavio Briatore, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, also happens to be Doohan’s manager – who should be closest to him.

Who needs enemies when you have friends like Flav?

Doohan has conducted himself with great dignity in the face of constant questions surrounding his future and has shown promising pace against Pierre Gasly, one of the eternally underrated drivers on the current grid.

Yet operating under that pressure and uncertainty, and with points hard to come by at the start of 2025, there was always going to be a moment when he would begin to crack.

His accident in FP2 on Friday could be traced directly back to the decision for Doohan to sit out first practice at Suzuka.

At a venue where drivers, especially the rookies with no great history of racing here, need to “build up your stones” as if dealing with a street circuit – as Doohan put it in true Aussie Grit style – it engendered the kind of muddled thinking that tempts those under pressure to cut corners and take risks in an effort to make up for lost practice time.

It was driver error, no doubt. But that error was rooted in the team’s mismanagement of Doohan.

Who was there to tell him to just keep calm and play himself in at the start of FP2?

And to definitely, definitely not leave DRS open when you tip the car into Turn 1 on your first flying lap of the weekend, no matter what the simulator might have suggested?

Still without a point on the board, and now with a sizeable and costly crash to his name, a cynic might suggest that Alpine finally have the excuse they’ve been looking for to make a change.

Potentially as soon as Bahrain, the type of conventional circuit where it is easiest to parachute a driver in at relatively short notice at this stage of the season, perhaps?

Maybe it was no coincidence that just hours after Doohan had to be helped from his cockpit in parc ferme at Suzuka, still struggling with the physical effects of his accident two days on, Colapinto was spotted on track in a TPC outing at Monza.

It has been ugly to watch and promises to get uglier still, yet the uncomfortable truth at the heart of this deeply unedifying, sorry saga?

Alpine are simply in the process of correcting a mistake.

Welcome to Red Bull Racing, Yuki Tsunoda

Welcome to Red Bull Racing.

That’s the phrase – dangerously close to catchphrase territory these days – Christian Horner comes out with whenever he shakes hands on a new signing.

Liam Lawson never tired of telling that story last winter, breaking into a big, beaming smile whenever he recalled the moment he was informed that he would be Max Verstappen’s new team-mate for 2025.

“They had the meeting and Christian was kind enough to send me a text, just a heads up, that the meeting was good,” he proudly told Red Bull’s in-house podcast last December.

“And then he called me and basically gave me the news. And he gave me the classic one liner: ‘Welcome to Red Bull Racing.’

“It was very exciting to hear over the phone, so it was cool.”

It was not long, of course, before the smile was wiped off Lawson’s face and doubtless Yuki Tsunoda has been given the same kiss of death at some stage over the last few weeks.

Welcome to Red Bull Racing, Tsunoda-san! Welcome, sir! And the very best of luck to you, because you’re going to need it.

True, Tsunoda already looks more at home in the RB21 than Lawson ever did across the first two races of the season in Australia and China.

Which – given his debut in this notoriously tricky car came at possibly the most challenging circuit on the calendar, high speed and lined with gravel traps just waiting to suck you in – bodes relatively well for the races to come at more conventional and forgiving tracks.

Yet the final result – out in Q2 as the slowest of all and behind both Racing Bulls before drowning in a sea of Aston Martins, Alpines, Haas’s and Williams’ in the race and finishing almost a minute adrift of Verstappen for good measure – felt eminently familiar.

It was not quite the punch to the face Lawson received in Melbourne, yet neither did this inspire great confidence that Tsunoda is the answer Red Bull are looking for.

Indeed, if the team seriously believe that Yuki is the answer, you might be minded to suggest that they are asking the wrong question.

It was noticeable that Tsunoda’s expectations for his Red Bull debut decreased as the Japanese GP edged ever closer, first aiming for a podium (!) before later admitting that, actually, he’d happily settle for Q3 and a point or two.

It was as though, after the bold public pronouncements that the Red Bull is suited to his driving style, the realisation of how difficult this step up will be slowly began to dawn on him.

And that he even fell short of his revised targets should hit home the scale of the challenge in what is the hardest job in F1 these days.

If he didn’t quite know what he was getting into before this weekend, he sure as hell does now.

Buckle up, Yuki. Here is your new reality.

Welcome to Red Bull Racing.

Andrea Kimi Antonelli embodies the sense of renewal at Mercedes

Imagine for a moment how different the narrative surrounding Mercedes would be in 2025 if Lewis Hamilton had never left.

Another wasted year, people would be saying. Fourth season of these regulations now and still they haven’t cracked it.

Still being blown away each and every week by their own engine in the McLaren, the F1 equivalent of being kicked in the head with your own shoes on someone else’s feet.

The car might have improved this time, yes, but still nowhere near enough for Lewis to even dream of lifting that elusive eighth title.

Instead? There is a freshness, a sense of renewal, in the spring air.

It has not taken long for Mercedes to step out of the long shadow Hamilton was casting towards the end of his time with the team, the crushing feeling of underachievement not only leaving with him but also following him to Ferrari.

There is new hope now as the races tick by towards the new 2026 rules and the moment many believe the three-pointed star will rise again.

Nobody embodies the great Mercedes reset of 2025 more than Andrea Kimi Antonelli, the boy wonder signed as Hamilton’s successor.

It took him just one race to extinguish fears that the team’s decision to sign a teenager to replace the most decorated driver in F1 history was reckless in the extreme, Antonelli’s recovery from 16th on the grid to fourth in Australia a demonstration of the natural touch and feel for a racing car shared by the sport’s greats.

Another trait that unites the most successful people in sport?

The ability to be self critical, to keep an open mind and acknowledge that as good as you think you might be, and no matter how many billboards bear your face, there are still areas you can improve.

Even more so than Melbourne, in this regard Suzuka was both the greatest challenge he has faced to date – he described his experience of Friday and Saturday morning here as “really hard mentally” – and the biggest indication yet that Antonelli has the right stuff.

With his fastest lap of FP3 just a tenth quicker than his FP1 time – compared, for instance, to a 0.6s improvement for Lando Norris as the track evolved – Antonelli admitted to being “very lost” at the end of practice at Suzuka having been “stuck” where he was since Friday morning.

It was in the three-hour window ahead of qualifying that his weekend transformed as he studied the onboards, compared his laps to those of George Russell, settled on a more cautious setup (a little too safe, he would later concede) and took advice on racing lines and tyre preparation from Valtteri Bottas.

And just like that, a deficit of 1.1s to Russell at the end of final practice had been reduced to 0.2s by the close of Q3 (albeit flattered by Russell underachieving after getting his own tyre warm up wrong), Antonelli gritting his teeth and just throwing the Mercedes – for he knows no other way in the high-speed corners – into the esses, the Degners and Spoon.

It was a highly impressive turnaround just hours after he had been staring a Q1 exit in the face.

And it was a valuable lesson, a sign that Antonelli – a noticeably more physically mature specimen than the kid who turned up at Monza last year and did not know his own strength – is developing rapidly as a result of being plunged into the deep end.

It is more than a decade now since another kid, by the name of Max Verstappen, turned up at Suzuka for his first proper go in an F1 car, stroking a Toro Rosso around the fastest circuit on the calendar aged 17 as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Here is another one, the one they call Valentino Rossi with two extra wheels, with the power in his hands to change everything too.

Believe the hype.