FORMULA 1 LENOVO JAPANESE GRAND PRIX 2025 - Suzuka......RACEDAY.......... ▄▀▄▀▄▀ SPOILERS

Can't we shift to giving credit to Toto, the guy was on the clock for finding a replacement for LH, so far his decision looks just fine.

 

Kimi is really impressing me so far but he's not striking me as the one of the greats have as they were all simply ‘on it’ and incredibly fast from day one in any situation. Kimi doesn’t have qualifying under control yet but he is fast, and his race craft is very good. His pace was quickest on track the final 10 or so laps of this race. Impressive stuff but I’m still not quite seeing it just yet, definitely the best rookie out there now.

George continues to do a great job otherwise.

I still don’t see Max remaining with Red Bull even if he bags a title there this season (which I still highly doubt). 2026 will be an engine series and Red Bull/Ford will be on the back end of things for at least the first year or so

 

SO far, this kimi fella is really really impressing. I would say the 2nd best on the grid after Max.

 

It's already clear to me that Mclaren is favouring Norris. Balls' in Piastri's court now; next time take the risk and overtake. Screw the papaya rules. A Title isn't gifted to you, you have to take it.

 

Overall another boring race the F1 has outgrown. I don’t understand why we can’t modify some of these tracks to make them a bit more capable. Or better yet, have different rules or options for some of these tracks. Drop the tire rule for instance. But why can’t they reprofile parts of the track to make it serve its purpose. This was about on-par with Monocco

 

I am NOT trying to take anything away from Max, but he has been at RBR since 2017 and since the beginning of the development of the current car for 2x races per year now! He has the time, the development progression, practice, qualifying, and racing experience throughout. That has a lot do with his dominance over teammates. Throw him in a Ferrari or McLaren for 2 races and he would not look as polished. There simply isn't a driver in the world that could beat Max in a Red Bull in two races.

I do think Max is the best driver in the world right now too!

 

Unfortunately we will not see a mid season change from Max to Ferrari/Merc/Mclaren but the last time Max did do a mid season change he kinda ended up winning

But agree with your point, Lawson should've had a bit more time. At the very least until Imola.

 

Wow, so Yuki also bombed. So, if he bombs out again at the next race, who is RB going to rotate in to replace him? Hadjar?

 

Hadjar should avoid that as much as he can - the Red Bull seems to be currently worse than the Racing Bull / Alpha Tauri, and Max is not an easy team mate to be compared with.

 

Did Yuki bomb? They gave him the high downforce rear wing. What did they expect when you put training wheels on an F1 car. They knew - or should have known - what would happen.

/

 

Red Bull, like Ferrari, should take a long hard look at themselves, albeit for different reasons. McLaren and Mercedes seem to be on a much more even keel.

 

I think the outcome is what is "bombing". After three races and no points from driver #2, it will limit RB aspirations for the WC, currently on 3rd, but if this
trend continues, and Ferrari improves, they probably could end up in 4th. (Without Ferrari's DQ probably will already be in 4th. EDIT, just checked, not quite so).

 

Here's the rub, RedBull will also bring updates as well....also Mclaren. Max just has to qualify in the top 3 while MercedesAMGF1 "looks" to qualify in the top 5. Ferrari "looks" to qualify P4 thru P7 with Leclerc and P8 thru P10 with Hamilton. As long as Max is in front of the Mercedes and Ferrari is behind both MercedesAMGF1 drivers, Max alone beats both Ferrari drivers in points IF this current trend continues as it has been.

 

Im surprised there wasn't more talk about how Yuki was outside of points.

 

One question will be how good the RB development be without Newey. If Ferrari can solve its floor issue, it could unlock quite a bit of potential. It's a big if,
and if *it* happens, when is that happening. If it doesn't come soon, they will abandon efforts to concentrate on next year's car. It's the same story every year,
but with 2026 rules, that will be a tad more important.

 

One thing that's constant with Ferrari is they have always had correlation issues with the 1:6 scale model to the actual model on track....as in those correlation issues don't always pan out.

 

Simple. He screwed up in Q2. If he had made Q3 he likely would have been in the points at the end, as there was only one change in the order from the top 10.

 

Might have been the most boring race I’ve ever watch.
Most exciting part was max and Norris exiting the pit lane

 

Not sure the floor is really the problem, the suspension kinematics looks a bigger problem right now. Something has gone badly wrong from the end of 24 with Ferrari and that probably rests with Loic Serra we seem to have all the traits of Mercedes last few cars. Narrow operating window check, unpredictable handling check etc. I doubt Ferrari will win proper gp this year.

 

History does have a habit of repeating itself so

Jody Sheckter 1979
Michael Schumacher 2000
21years

Kimi Raikkonen 2008
X 2029
21 years

Could be earlier if all the other top teams screw up and leave the gate open.

 

Hopefully it's not just me that sees the humour in all the articles were written preseason by the F1 media about how much of a fantastic headstart Lewis/Ferrari would get because of moving to Lewis' favourite suspension. They truly are clueless ​

 

that's not the point...the point was them waxing lyrical about magic changes lewis and his input/needs got put on the car

 

What he said. Saddest thing about yuki/lawson bombing out / RB's 1-driver lineup is, somehow even w their handicap, we are still miles away in the constructors. We might even get beat by Williams lmao!