🇯🇵 F1'25, R03: Gorilla Position

Suzuka is a proper drivers’ track. A combination of a kart track sector one, a fun figure of eight layout with some swinging fast corners that end with a tight, speed-controlling chicane. It’s loved by the teams, and the grandstands are full of creative fans in brilliant costumes. (Sidenote: You all hated the Barcelona chicane, but this one is fine. I see).

It’s a shame, therefore, that the race wasn’t one that - one incident aside - is going to make the high production value highlight reel on Netflix next year. 

That one incident was on lap 23, when McLaren and Lando Norris pitted at the same time as Max Verstappen’s Red Bull. A few laps previously, they tried a dummy call to force Red Bull into a change, but it didn’t work. The reigning Teams’ champions had pitted Oscar Piastri before - a move that was surprising as conventional wisdom would normally pit the leading driver first, avoiding the undercut. 

But the undercut was not effective in Japan, as the tyres took too long to heat up in the cool conditions in Suzuka, so that was off the table. But if that was the case, then surely the opposite was an option? While the driver in front pits and takes 1-2 laps to get up to speed, you burn up your already warm Pirellis, pit and by the time you come out, you’re ahead. Andrea Stella later said that the overcut would have left Norris in traffic, but merely doing the same thing felt like a strategic mistake from a team still getting used to being at the top of the standings.

I don’t want to quote myself, but after Round 1, I wrote: “Over the course of the season, you’ll hear the words “box opposite” meaning if your opponent pits, you don’t, and vice versa. Doing something different is the norm in F1.” McLaren neutralised themselves by preferring to do the same thing as their rivals, taking strategy off the table, relying on a slow Red Bull pit stop to achieve a different result. It almost happened, but ultimately, they did the same thing as their rivals, and achieved the same result.

No one would doubt that in 2025, McLaren have the fastest car on the grid. This was borne out in the first couple of races as Norris and Piastri traded wins and the narrative was starting to build towards an intra-team McLaren battle. If that was going to be the case, Suzuka would be the place where - to use a famous phrase - it’s happened immediately. But while McLaren hold the Teams’ title, the reigning Drivers’ champion was a giant spanner in the prevailing media narrative.

Could McLaren be accused of complacency on a weekend when they were favourites to win again? You have to balance both drivers at the front, while Red Bull did not, and the team must have thought that Norris would have enough to catch and overtake Verstappen. And with that perceived knowledge, they thought they could pit at the same time and everything would work itself out on track. 

The people making the calls on strategy and from the pitwall, and the 308 million computer simulations every team runs must have said that Norris will overtake Verstappen. The pit stop should not have happened at the same time, McLaren could have given Norris 2-3 more laps on medium tyres that other drivers took beyond lap 30, and should not forget that having the fastest car is not everything. 

In the end, the Japanese Grand Prix played out to McLaren fighting among themselves for the right to finish second than it was to mount a challenge for the top of the podium.

And it didn’t come to a head in Suzuka, but there was an exceptionally polite radio message from Piastri, the Australian driver telling his team that he felt he could have pushed past Verstappen for the win. Both McLaren drivers are free to race under the fabled and undocumented Papaya Rules, so the obvious counter would be that if you’re quicker than Max, Oscar should also be quicker than Lando, so go and overtake him on merit. 

McLaren can be absolved of any blame on whether they should have released Piastri - a double podium is 33 valuable points and the most of any team. They hold a 36-point lead to Mercedes. This team is obviously doing something right and at most tracks this year, they will be quick enough that strategy is a thing they don’t have to worry about.

But there are growing pains for this team as they adjust to their position at the top of the standings. We saw it last year in Hungary as the Harold Pinter play took place inside the cockpit of a conflicted Norris who eventually did yield to his teammate. We’ve seen it in media interviews and events where McLaren are winners, and the drivers are clearly well-suited to being winners - you could easily imagine Piastri or Norris as a World Champion. But despite that, this race will put a magnifying glass on the people in the Gorilla Position making those calls.

If you are McLaren’s strategy team, this Red Bull win must act as a wake up call. Not just for the winners, who realise that they absolutely can compete through one driver at least, but for Team Papaya, who know how good their team is, and how good both drivers are, but being different in F1 often generates its own reward.

There won’t be much time for teams to reconsider this race, as the second and third leg of the season’s first triple header takes F1 to Bahrain and then Saudi Arabia now Ramadan is over. There was rain in Australia and a risk of rain in Japan. I am not a weather forecaster, but I am confident that the wet tyres won’t be needed in the Middle East this year. Hotter temperatures will favour McLaren, accentuating their mechanical advantage. But whether or not McLaren have a strategic advantage, that remains to be seen.