McLaren can be beaten, but Verstappen must be perfect: 5 takeaways from F1’s Japanese Grand Prix

McLaren remains the team to beat in Formula 1, but Max Verstappen’s victorious drive for Red Bull at the Japanese Grand Prix showed only excellence is good enough.

Ahead of this week’s Bahrain Grand Prix, here are five takeaways from Suzuka:

So, McLaren can be beaten. Don’t count on it

Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri still have the fastest all-round car on the F1 grid, but McLaren can no longer achieve the sort of win streak that Red Bull had to start its all-conquering 2023 season.

Verstappen’s win showed just how hard it is to beat McLaren. The four-time champion had to do almost everything perfectly in both qualifying and the race. Even then, McLaren came painfully close to taking the lead when Norris drove over the grass at the pitlane exit while trying to get past Verstappen.

“We really maximized the weekend,” Verstappen said, adding he got an assist from cool weather reducing his tire wear, a key aspect where McLaren has had an edge.

Verstappen shines all the more as Red Bull struggles

The last time anyone other than Verstappen scored a point for Red Bull was five races, four months and three teammates ago.

Sergio Perez, Liam Lawson and now Yuki Tsunoda have all been nowhere near Verstappen, something which shows how difficult it is for anyone but him to tame a Red Bull car which is considered unusually tricky to drive. Getting pole position and the win in Japan was a showcase of Verstappen’s skill and adaptability.

Tsunoda was “disappointed” to be 12th at his home race. It was still the best finish for Red Bull’s second car since Perez was 10th in Las Vegas in November.

Record-breaker Antonelli is the top rookie

Andrea Kimi Antonelli had a day to remember as the 18-year-old Italian became the youngest driver in F1 history to lead a Grand Prix and to set the fastest lap. The Mercedes driver, who finished sixth, said it was a “nice feeling” to lead and now “the next goal is to do that on the only lap that matters, the final one.”

Antonelli can’t break Verstappen’s record as youngest race winner, though. The Dutch driver was 18 years and 228 days old when he won the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix. Antonelli will be three days older than that at the Bahrain Grand Prix on Sunday.

Antonelli is the standout in F1’s biggest rookie class in years, though Racing Bulls’ Isack Hadjar is improving. He finished eighth in Japan after a tough start to the year.

‘Boring’ and ‘lonely’ isn’t what Ferrari needs

At least Ferrari scored some points after a double disqualification in China, but it wasn’t a race to make fans’ hearts beat faster. Charles Leclerc said his run to fourth place was “very boring” and Lewis Hamilton admitted it was a “lonely race” after finishing seventh.

Besides missing the podium, Ferrari missed out on the excitement it wanted to create when it signed seven-time champion Hamilton. After the drama of his sprint race win in China and being disqualified the next day, Hamilton was managing expectations at Suzuka.

F1 season shakeup can bring risks

Moving the Japanese Grand Prix to the spring last year, away from its usual fall slot, meant F1 gets Japan’s famed cherry blossom into the TV footage and cuts travel distances between races. It also brought a headache for organizers. Japan’s rainy season is in the summer, so in the meantime the grass around the track was dormant and dry. Grass fires forced a red flag in qualifying Saturday and two in practice the day before. Rain helped the track avoid more disruption Sunday.