What Red Bull did behind the scenes to capitalise on ‘safer’ McLaren call that lost them the Japanese Grand Prix

The Japanese Grand Prix produced the first moment of the season that proves McLaren are fallible in their quest to win both championships.

Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri both produced incredible performances to win in Australia and China, respectively.

McLaren have an impressive lead in the constructors’ championship already, but will feel that they missed out on an opportunity to extend it even further at the Japanese Grand Prix.

Throughout each of the three practice sessions, McLaren looked like they had the fastest car, while Red Bull star Max Verstappen complained that he felt lost trying to find the best setup.

He was only marginally ahead of new teammate Yuki Tsunoda at this point, although Tsunoda’s weekend would unravel during qualifying, when he was eliminated in Q2.

However, Verstappen was suddenly capable of producing what team principal Christian Horner claimed was one of the best laps of his career to pip both McLaren drivers to pole position.

From there, he was able to control the race perfectly and secure his first win of the season and close the gap to Noris in the drivers’ championship to a single point.

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Red Bull simulator work punished McLaren at the Japanese Grand Prix

A report from Motorsport Italia provided more details on how Red Bull took such an impressive step forward between the first two sessions in Japan, qualifying, and the race itself.

They believe that Red Bull’s engineers spotted that the wings on Verstappen’s car were ‘too loaded’ and a check on the simulator on Friday night confirmed this.

They therefore decided to change the load on the wing ‘in search of maximum speed’, while McLaren had opted for a ‘safer configuration’, believing they had time in the bank over Verstappen.

They should have had both cars on the front row of the grid, but both Piastri and Norris made small errors during their final runs in Q3.

McLaren couldn’t capitalise on their better tyre management during the race, with cars suffering from virtually no degradation throughout.

It’s a back-to-back double podium for team papaya 🏆🏆#McLaren | #JapaneseGP 🇯🇵 pic.twitter.com/HuYi2bcOTz

— McLaren (@McLarenF1) April 6, 2025

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella admitted that cars needed an advantage of nearly one second per lap to overtake at Suzuka, which Norris certainly didn’t have running in Verstappen’s dirty air, and Piastri never got the chance to prove whether he was up to the task.

However, McLaren didn’t use team order because they didn’t believe that the Australian would have been capable of pulling off the move even if Norris had let him by.

This doesn’t prove that Red Bull have taken a step forward with their car’s development, but it does show how effective the team are at maximising their performance with the best driver on the grid in one of their cars.

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McLaren denied victory by issue that upset fans at the Japanese Grand Prix

Although Norris and Piastri could have gone faster than Verstappen based on the performance of their cars, the circumstances of the race at Suzuka appeared to make an overtake impossible.

Fans complained about how difficult it is for F1 cars to follow each other, and with only 15 overtakes completed throughout the race, the Grand Prix was understandably compared to Monaco.

The next race in Bahrain is unlikely to have the same issues, with the track much wider and with more heavy braking zones to pull off moves.

Verstappen will have his work cut out keeping both McLarens behind him, but he’s proved he’s more than capable of producing unlikely results throughout his Formula 1 career.