After a Japanese Grand Prix which featured precious few highlights, Jeremy Clarkson says stop using tracks where “overtaking is difficult”.

It may seem like an obvious statement on first glance, but Clarkson explained the sound theory as he warned Formula 1 that “the revenue comes from fans” after a 2025 Japanese Grand Prix which failed to thrill.

Future of Formula 1 racing: Overtaking-friendly tracks only the way?

It turned out that the results of the Japanese Grand Prix were more or less determined by qualifying on Saturday.

Max Verstappen pulled off a shock pole to deny McLaren – who had looked the standard all weekend in-keeping with their start to F1 2025 – and on Grand Prix Sunday, he kept the McLaren duo of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri at arms length to take his first victory of the season.

It was a race of very limited overtaking throughout the pack. In fact, if it were not for Lewis Hamilton passing Isack Hadjar, the top 10 would have finished in the exact order they started, with one-stop strategies the way to go for all in a race where tyre degradation was limited.

And with that, motorsport journalist, presenter and celebrity F1 fanatic Jeremy Clarkson set out his vision for F1’s future.

“I’ve had an idea to make F1 racing more consistently exciting. Don’t use tracks where overtaking is difficult,” Clarkson suggested on social media.

“Sure. The cars are bigger so accept that, ignore the “incentives”, and use tracks that are suitable. Ultimately, the revenue comes from fans. Always.

“That F1 race this morning gave me an idea of what it might be like to watch cricket.”

Alex Albon’s “I think it was a boring race, because my radio was clearly a hot topic” response to some tetchy interactions with Williams which attracted attention, arguably summed up the lack of on-track action.

F1 2025 head-to-head standings

👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates

👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head qualifying statistics between team-mates

Another driver to comment on the entertainment value of the race was Fernando Alonso, who felt everyone knows what they are going to get with a Grand Prix at Suzuka as he made comparisons to Monaco.

The two-time World Champion crossed the line P11 for Aston Martin, one of the few movers, up one place from his grid slot.

Put to him that quite a few drivers have now said it was a boring race, Alonso responded: “It was difficult. Not boring, because I had the first half of the race [Pierre] Gasly within one second behind, and second part Yuki [Tsunoda], so I couldn’t, you know, make a mistake in one corner, because they will overtake.

“So it was a very demanding race for us, but slow in general. We didn’t have the pace.

“And about the circuit, yeah, this is Suzuka. I don’t remember a race even in the past that we see too many overtakings here without the weather changing.

“So it seems like we repeat always on Thursday, how great Suzuka is, how great Monaco is, the glamour, the spectacular weekend. And then on Sunday, we wake up and we say, ‘Monaco is boring. What we can do to the track? Suzuka is boring.’

“You know, this is Formula 1. And Suzuka is great, first, because Saturday is incredibly high adrenaline.”

With the Suzuka circuit having been resurfaced ahead of the 2025 Japanese GP, Alonso was asked if that made the situation worse still with reducing tyre wear.

He replied: “Yeah, maybe one stop was not the fun race that we were hoping for.

“And in the past, with multiple stops, maybe there’s a tyre difference. But, yeah, when we don’t have grip, we complain that there is no grip. And when we have too many stops, we complain the tyres don’t last.

“So instead of, you know, seeing the negative part of the weekend, I tried to enjoy what we experienced this weekend. And it was another great Suzuka.”

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