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BBC News
06-04-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
Verstappen fends off Norris to win in Japan
Red Bull's Max Verstappen fended off a race-long challenge from the McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri to win the Japanese Grand Dutchman's fourth consecutive victory at Suzuka was his first of the year and moves Verstappen to within one point of Norris at the head of the drivers' drive was cool under intense pressure, with rarely more than two seconds between him and Norris, and founded on a quite brilliant pole position lap on had feared that the Red Bull would be difficult to pass if Verstappen held the lead at the start, and so it proved. Verstappen led the two McLarens for the entire first stint, the three lapping closely may be questions as to why McLaren pitted Piastri first, when it might have made sense to attack Verstappen with Norris with an earlier pit and Norris stopped on the same lap, one later than Piastri, and there was an immediate they pitted, they were separated by just 1.5 seconds. Norris' stop was faster by a second, and as they left the pits the McLaren was halfway alongside the Red Verstappen held his line, and Norris ran out of track, taking to the complained about Verstappen's driving, saying he had been pushed off, while Verstappen countered by saying his rival had driven off by himself. The stewards agreed with the four-time world then on, Norris and Piastri tracked Verstappen for the final 32 laps, with just over two seconds separating them most of the Norris could not get within a second of Verstappen, and in fact it was Piastri who looked to have the best pace, sometimes closing to within 0.5secs of his suggested to the team that he felt he had the pace to beat Verstappen - a thinly veiled request to be let McLaren did not interfere in their battle and the drivers crossed the line in the order they had held all race, separated by just 2.2 moves into third place in the championship ahead of Mercedes' George Russell, and is 13 points behind his said: "It was tough, just pushing very hard on the last set. The two McLarens were pushing me very hard."Not easy to manage the tyres. I'm incredibly happy. It started off quite tough this weekend but we didn't give up, we carried on improving the car and today it was in its best form. Starting on pole was very important."Norris added: "The pace was too similar to do anything more. Long race, a lot of pushing, flat out from start to finish, but nothing special we had to get Max on. He deserved it."They were quick, they've made some improvements, and we'll have to work hard."The top three were in a race of their own and the entire grand prix was pretty static in terms of Charles Leclerc held off Russell for fourth place, while the Briton's 18-year-old team-mate Andrea Kimi Antonelli put in a strong final stint to close to less than two seconds behind his Hamilton, on an alternate tyre strategy, took seventh from eighth place on the grid, getting ahead of Racing Bulls' Isack Hadjar early in the Albon drove an attacking race, complaining to the Williams team about his strategy, to take ninth, ahead of the Haas of Briton Oliver his first race for Red Bull, Yuki Tsunoda finished 12th with the man he replaced, Liam Lawson, 17th in the Racing Bull.
BBC News
04-04-2025
- Automotive
- BBC News
Tsunoda sixth as Norris fastest in Suzuka practice
Japanese Grand PrixVenue: Suzuka Dates: 4-6 April Race start: 06:00 BST on SundayCoverage: Live radio commentary of practice and qualifying on BBC 5 Sports Extra, race live on BBC Radio 5 Live. Live text updates on the BBC Sport website and app Yuki Tsunoda made a promising start to his Red Bull career in first practice at the Japanese Grand Japanese, promoted to the senior team in a swap with Liam Lawson after just two races of the season, was sixth fastest, 0.107 seconds slower than his four-time world champion team-mate Max Red Bulls were lagging more than 0.5 seconds behind the pace-setting McLaren of Lando Norris, who headed the times by 0.163secs from George Russell's Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton were third and fourth, followed by Verstappen and Tsunoda and Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso. Tsunoda had a few edgy moments as he familiarised himself with his new car. He ran on to the kerb at Degner One, twice had an oversteer moment at the hairpin, and then a big wobble out of the final he kept the car on track and displayed a mature approach in the cockpit to getting to grips with a car that is renowned for its tricky his engineer told him at one point that he was about 0.3secs behind Russell, Tsunoda replied: "Let's focus on ourselves. I don't need much reference time."At the end of the session, he told his engineer: "I found the car interesting on track. Good 'sesh'."Norris made a couple of mistakes on his first run on the medium tyre, and his opening lap on the soft tyre was ruined by an error at the car bounced over the kerb at the second apex of the chicane, which flicked the car into an oversteer and Norris slid into the after a lap to cool down his tyres and recharge his hybrid battery, Norris laid down the benchmark time, displacing the impressive Russell from the top of the team-mate Oscar Piastri did not manage a representative time on the soft tyre and ended up 15th third and fourth fastest, the Ferraris were a chunk off the pace - Leclerc was 0.416secs slower than Norris, with Hamilton 0.086secs off his was 0.516secs slower than Norris, complaining early on that the car felt "super-weird" and "just flexing a lot", and Alonso was just 0.05secs slower than Tsunoda in a tightly packed second half of the top Hadjar in the Racing Bull was 0.003secs behind Alonso, while Andrea Kimi Antonelli's Mercedes was ninth ahead of the Williams of Carlos Sainz and Alex and Albon both had almost identical offs at the hairpin, locking up their outside front tyres and sliding into the gravel before joining the demoted by Red Bull because they felt his confidence had gone and would not recover after a difficult first two races, was 13th on his return to Racing Bulls, 0.311secs off Hadjar.
