Lando Norris said his attempts to challenge Max Verstappen for the lead of the Japanese Grand Prix were thwarted by his tyres overheating.
The McLaren driver pursued his rival throughout the 53-lap race at Suzuka. Norris appeared to come under threat from his team mate Oscar Piastri at times, but he said this was only when he’d deliberately dropped back from Verstappen in order for his tyres to recover.“I don’t think I ever got less than 1.2 [seconds behind],” said Norris. “I would get closer and then drop back and closer and drop back. And every time I got close, the tyres would just get too hot and I would lose too much grip.
“Even when Oscar was behind me, it looked like he was quicker, but it was when I’m trying to drop back a little bit to cool the tyres and then attempt at catching up to Max. But it just never worked. I gave it a good try but I just didn’t have the speed today.”
Norris said he wasn’t able to stay close to Verstappen out of the low-speed acceleration zones, the hairpin and the chicane, which compromised his attempts to attack the Red Bull.
“The pace was too similar,” he told Viaplay. “We didn’t really have any advantage to Max.
“Maybe we were a bit better in sector one, in the high-speed corners, but he was much quicker in slow-speed corners. So we were struggling a lot there with the car, just not quick enough in the slow-speed.
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“It was just difficult with him in the clean air and me in the dirty air, so close, we didn’t have enough of an advantage to do anything else.
“So nothing to complain about, [just] things to work on because we were struggling a bit today with the slow speed corners. But really Max won the race yesterday in qualifying. It’s the way it is sometimes.”
Norris indicated McLaren made some concessions in its set-up for the wet conditions which were forecast for today’s race. However the showers which did hit the track passed well before the start and the track remained largely dry throughout.
“We thought there would be maybe some more rain today,” said Norris. “Maybe we were not in the optimal range yesterday for qualifying, thinking that it was going to rain a little bit today, but we did our best still, so that’s all I can ask.”
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2025 Japanese Grand Prix
- McLaren has to accept upsetting either of its drivers sometimes – Stella
- Verstappen ‘can test our car, I look forward to seeing his disappointment’ – Norris
- Verstappen insists McLaren domination claim was ‘no joke’ after Piastri’s doubt
- Extra mandatory pit stop won’t create more passing at tracks like Suzuka – Sainz
- Mercedes took note of Verstappen’s out-lap tactics after stunning Suzuka pole position
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
6th April 2025, 13:14
pretty much this. Pirelli have made tires that keep everyone close together but wilt when you try to overtake.
Every race is almost a monaco going forward unless it rains, or they can muster up some more lawn fires. exceptionally dull race.
Osnola
6th April 2025, 14:06
But piastri was able to stay in drs the entire stint…
Alberto
6th April 2025, 16:06
Norris managed to stay within 1.4 seconds of Max the whole race too. Max had a low downforce set up that gave him an advantage on the straights where as Piastri and Norris had a similar wing level. The point is with the cards that were dealt to everyones hands today there wasn’t going to be much overtaking unless someone made a mistake.
Osnola
7th April 2025, 12:03
Topspeed of mcl was higher on the straight. Only one straight. They had none or little advantage of the flex rearwing.
The difference was the acceleration out of the slow corners. Thats where the rb21 nade the difference. Most notably the hairpin where max used another line compared with norris.
David (@nvherman)
7th April 2025, 9:28
Piastri was certainly not in DRS range of Norris for the whole stint, he would close up for 5 or 6 laps, then drop back out for a few
MichaelN
6th April 2025, 15:42
In 2022 Brawn and Liberty promised they would refine their car spec if the need arose. Tombazis, on behalf of the FIA, said the same a year later. What have they done? Nothing.
It’s silly enough to spend this much money on race cars, but at least make them raceable cars. I have a lot of residual interest in F1, but these cars and tyres are just no good.
Jockey Ewing
6th April 2025, 18:40
What if the participating giga-corporates just have not wanted to accept the proposal what would have had solved problems like porpoising (like a simpler active suspension exactly for counteracting this problem, or building a common knowledge-base related to the problem, or a common solution to be available for all teams), and they have gone for the band-aid-fix of raising the ride height, because after all, it is a political game, and I do not expect, “organizations” to have too much power over the biggest companies of the world.
The proposal might have been swept under the rugs faster than the ideas related to it could make the news. Maybe Brawn retiring relatively early is not coincidental. He did it quite quietly and gracefully – maybe he just has not wanted to interact with people who are not like him at all.
MichaelN
6th April 2025, 22:17
Toto Wolff and whoever his friends in the FIA were (are?) definitely share in the blame for the failure of the Liberty-designed cars. To build an entire new car spec around increasing the percentage of downforce generated from the underbody (it was already well above 50% after 2017) and then significantly bump up the ride height after a few months is just outlandish. But it’s even worse that they did nothing to address this. It’s been three years!
At least Mercedes didn’t actually benefit from their ‘oh no we can’t stop the bouncing’ theatrics and are still pretty much were they were in 2022; the third/fourth best team. Small comfort, I guess.
An Sionnach
7th April 2025, 11:11
Ground effect cars, but many ground effect principles are not allowed (active suspension, skirts, fans, ride height)!
Next rule set: H16 engines, but no wheels allowed. Makes them very efficient!
David
6th April 2025, 19:14
I was against the ground effects regulations from the start. But the fans and the engineers all seemed to think it was the answer – “no wake” etc etc
Obviously they were wrong and I was right. F1 engineers take everything they can out of the car’s aero package, there will never be any “energised” air behind the car. This isn’t the 1980s (or Indycars).
The porpoising issues in the first season didn’t help either but that was always going to be a transient issue.
I’m afraid next year’s rules will only make things more of a procession.
As I have said time and time again, if we want close racing, we need significantly less aero (floor, wings and bodywork), and significantly less braking power. F1 cars don’t need to be 10-15 seconds faster per lap than F2, 5 seconds a lap is more than enough to be a step up in challenge.
MichaelN
6th April 2025, 22:20
That they’re trying to smooth over the obvious limitations of the MGU by essentially making always-on DRS baseline is definitely not something to get excited over. We already saw what happens when you turn the cars into straight-line rocketships in 2014. It wasn’t great for racing.
BMW P85 V10
6th April 2025, 20:31
Totally agree. Let’s for instance look at the rear wing. The rounded top edge connecting the wing and the outer pillars was designed the keep turbulence to a minimum. In early stages teams where already looking at ways to partly break up with the completely rounded edges.
now the wings have hardly any rounded edge left and turbulence has increased significantly denying cars an opportunity to follow close. FIA should have stepped in straight away.
MichaelN
6th April 2025, 22:31
Exactly, and they’ve known about these and other issues for years. Tombazis in 2023 named the front wing endplate, the floor’s sides and the fins inside the wheels as problematic. He explained that the old 2021 cars lost ‘more than 50 percent’ of aerodynamic load if they were about two car lengths behind another one, and that in early 2022 this was down to ‘only a 20% reduction’. Already in 2023, it was ‘at about 35%’. I obviously don’t know the numbers now, but it’s been pretty obvious that it’s only gotten worse. And if they were able to jump 15 points from 2022 to 2023, who knows where they’re at now.
Tombazis then concluded that ‘we have identified what we should act on’ and said ‘We are studying solutions for 2025.’ Well, they’ve had two years. It’s been very disappointing to see how non-existent their solutions have been. How many people have been employed working on this? Isn’t it time to ask some questions what the FIA has been doing for all this time?
CarWars (@maxv)
9th April 2025, 2:49
Somehow you would think Max in a similar position as Norris would have at least tried one overtake..McLaren and Norris seemed happy not to win.