Verstappen Dominates 2025 Japanese GP – Sport Grill

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen dominated the 2025 Japanese Grand Prix amidst a late charge from McLaren.

Verstappen led from lights to flag aside from ten laps after he pitted on Lap 22 and got off scot-free for punting title rival, Lando Norris onto the grass at the pit exit on that lap as the pair exited the pits, although Norris attempted a late futile charge for victory.

Oscar Piastri finished third on his 24th birthday ahead of Charles Leclerc, George Russell, Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Lewis Hamilton, Isack Hadjar, Alex Albon and Oliver Bearman.

In the drivers’ standings, Norris’ title lead over Verstappen was trimmed down to just a single point whilst Piastri moved above Russell into third and 13 points off his McLaren teammate.

At lights out, Verstappen got a smooth getaway to head Norris and Piastri in a rare clean start for the whole grid during which Fernando Alonso passed Pierre Gasly for 11th, whilst Tsunoda jumped his Red Bull predecessor, Liam Lawson for 13th in the latter pair’s first race since the switch saw Lawson return to Racing Bulls.

Up front, Verstappen built a two-second gap to Norris and Piastri but around Lap16, Norris managed to steadily cut his gap to around 1.5s whilst McLaren pitted Piastri first at the end of Lap 20.

Norris followed suit a lap later at the same time as Verstappen but the Dutchman suffered a slower pit stop than Norris by one second, which allowed the Brit to come out alongside the reigning four-time champion who nudged his title rival onto the grass in response to Norris cutting his deficit right down.

Stewards however decided that no action was necessary on their part in relation to the incident which left Norris 2.3s behind Verstappen as a consequence, having cut his deficit down by 0.8s on his pace prior to the pit stops for hard tyres.

Mercedes rookie, Andrea Kimi Antonelli consequently became the youngest driver to lead a lap of a F1 GP at 18 years, seven months and 13 days old, until he pitted on Lap 32 to give Verstappen back the lead of the race with Norris having cut his deficit back down to 1.3s.

Piastri however showed better pace in the middle stint of their hard-tyre stint and wished to be unleashed on Verstappen after he got within one second of Norris on Lap 40, whilst Norris saved tyre wear until five laps later when he began to up the pace for a late charge to the finish with Piastri in hot pursuit.

Despite McLaren’s valiant late charge, Verstappen held on to claim a historic fourth consecutive Japanese GP victory and reduce his title deficit to just one point to Norris.

Leclerc, Russell and Antonelli rounded out the top six on a rare occasion where the top six finished as they started, whilst Hamilton, Hadjar, Albon and Bearman rounded out the top ten.

F1 now heads to Bahrain next weekend from 11-13 April in the second race of this triple-header with Saudi Arabia to follow from 18-20 April on Easter weekend.

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