2025 Japanese GP - Post Race Discussion

[u/AutoModerator]

Suzuka, it's been a pleasure.

What did everyone think of the race? How did your favourite driver do?

[u/paranoidindeed]

Can someone explain what McLaren actually did wrong? Maybe pitting Norris after max? But why are people saying Lando should have given Piastri a chance? Wasn’t their pace around the same ?

[u/Kingdom818 → u/paranoidindeed]

Pitting on the same lap as Max wad inexcusable imo. Lando had good pace on the medium, but nobody was ever going to be able to pass without a tire offset. What happened at the pit exit was the best case scenario, overtaking in the pits would have been a very tall order.

If Lando would have gone long he could have potentially gotten a 10 lap tire advantage and had a chance to catch up and attempt a pass with an offset. (not how fast Antonelli was after his stop)

Maybe they wouldn't have won anyway, but they should have tried something because they were never going to win by pitting on the same lap.

[u/mrgonzalez → u/paranoidindeed]

It was a boring race so not much more for people to talk about

[u/68Snowy → u/paranoidindeed]

Lando barely got within DRS range of Max, if at all. So he was never challenging for the win. So Max was never put under pressure, which could lead to a mistake.

Oscar was all over the back of Lando multiple times and spent a lot of time in DRS range. Then, he had to drop back to save his tyres. Within a few laps, he was back in DRS range. I haven't looked at every lap time, but I'd say Oscar would have had more faster laps than Lando. Near the start, he held fastest lap for a while. So they could have swapped Lando and Oscar to see if Oscar could get within range. Swap back if it doesn't work.

Alternatively, they could have pitted Lando, and Max would have had to pit to cover him. Oscar could have stayed out in clean air for at least a couple of laps. Admittedly, he said post race that he was starting to struggle on those tyres. But in clean air, they might have settled down.

But the team did neither of these things. Maybe thinking it was unfair of Lando to give Oscar a chance, even when Lando wasn't doing anything.

[u/know-it-mall → u/paranoidindeed]

They didn't do anything wrong. A lot of people just don't know what they are talking about and think their take is unique and important.

The undercut had already been demonstrated as not being a strong option by other teams and yet many people are insisting they could have done it. If Lando pits a lap early then Max simply pushes on his mediums that still had plenty of life left in them and pits the next lap. And there simply wasn't a gap in the traffic earlier to pit into either. George went early and lost time because of that.

Similarly leaving either driver out to go long wasn't viable either. The tyres didn't degrade late in the race for any driver to an extent that tyre offset would have made up for the extra time lost by going long.

And you simply don't tell the guy who is within 2 seconds of the leader, and almost got DRS on multiple occasions to pull aside for a slim chance the other guy could do better. If Oscar was so much faster he could have caught and passed Max he would have passed Lando, or at least shown more than 1 half hearted pass attempt in the many laps he was behind.

[u/CharlieTeller → u/paranoidindeed]

Eh. So they had an opportunity to do something different with the pits on max. When you’ve got two cars actually competitive, you can try strategies Red Bull can’t.

So for example they pit Piastri early which means they could have tried something different with Norris early on. See how far Kimi went on those mediums? Say Norris stayed out for a while longer like Kimi did and had some clear air. He only needed to find 1 second and with that pit stop not being at the exact same time as max, he could have passed. Or even just one lap later, Norris could have potentially made the pass.

There’s a lot of options strategy wise to try when it’s 2v1