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The Japanese Grand Prix is Jack Doohan’s fourth appearance as a Formula 1 race driver.
As opportunities to test and practice are so limited, it therefore came as a surprise when Alpine announced he would not take part in the first practice session this weekend. The team wanted to run its test driver Ryo Hirakawa at his home event, and chose to bench the rookie rather than his team mate Pierre Gasly, who will start his 156th grand prix on Sunday.
Asked on Thursday whether the team’s decision would put him at a disadvantage, Doohan diplomatically toed the PR line. “In China, a similar situation and I only had 40 minutes before that [power unit] issue in the end and then we still did a solid sprint quali and qualifying.”
This was true, but Shanghai’s circuit is a totally different prospect to Suzuka. The Chinese track is wide with vast run-offs, while Suzuka is narrow, has far more quick corners and the run-off is very limited in places.
Doohan admitted that “on paper, it looks more difficult and it sounds more difficult.” It certainly looked and sounded more difficult when he suffered a monumental crash early in the second practice session.
He was only on his second attempt at a flying lap when his car snapped out of control as he turned into Suzuka’s fearsomely fast and unimpressively named turn one, which he approached at around 330kph. He made a heavy impact with the six-deep tyre barrier on the outside, ripping the left-rear portion of his A525 to pieces.
Mercifully, Doohan emerged unscathed. Indeed, he was well enough to ask his race engineer three times before he got out of the car what had caused him to lose control. Sparing his blushes, his engineer Josh Peckett replied: “We’re just looking at everything on our side here.”
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But as the footage from his car showed, Doohan hadn’t deactivated his DRS as he headed into the corner. There was no way to put this down to anything besides driver error. “It was a misjudgement of not closing the DRS into turn one,” team principal Oliver Oakes confirmed in a statement hours after practice had finished.
Rookies are inevitably more susceptible to crashing than experienced drivers. All six drivers who embarked on their first full seasons this year have already bent an F1 car at least once.
At a track like Suzuka it makes sense to give them every chance possible to build up to the limit. Alpine was the only team who deprived their rookie of an hour’s running on one of F1’s most punishing courses.
It’s not hard to see why Alpine wanted to grab the opportunity to run their Japanese test driver at his home track. But this could just as easily have been achieved using Gasly’s car.
Moreover, had Alpine swapped Hirakawa with Gasly instead, it would have helped them meet the FIA-imposed requirement to give practice opportunities to inexperienced drivers. Each team must run “a driver who has not participated in more than two championship races in their career” twice in each of their cars during the season.
Alpine had already fulfilled this requirement on Doohan’s car before reaching Suzuka, as he had not yet started his third race when he took part in first practice in Shanghai. RaceFans has asked the team why it made this decision.
Long before Doohan started his first season of F1, rumours surfaced that he would not see it out, and be replaced by the likes of Franco Colapinto. This has frustrated Alpine, who claimed the speculation around its driver was “not fair.” But the strange decision they took at Suzuka is only going to add more fuel to that fire.
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Red Bull’s latest driver swap dominated the news as the Japanese Grand Prix weekend began.
As a result, Yuki Tsunoda and Liam Lawson have new cars to get used to. While Lawson may rue losing his place at the top team, the good news for him is the Racing Bulls 02 appears to be a very tidy chassis.
Indeed, the first day of running ended with both Racing Bulls drivers ahead of their Red Bull counterparts. This needs to be qualified with the point that Tsunoda’s qualifying simulation run was compromised by one of the many red flags in second practice, while the Racing Bulls pair got largely clean laps in.
Even so, Racing Bulls’ performance bears out what we’ve seen so far this year. Tsunoda put his car fifth on the grid at Melbourne: Could Lawson or Isack Hadjar do even better on Saturday? What an outcome it would be if Lawson, fresh from his demotion from the top team, out-qualified his fellow three Red Bull-backed drivers – or even just the one who replaced him.
But Racing Bulls are potentially as much of a threat to Mercedes and Ferrari, at least over a single flying lap.
At this track last year F1 still seemed to be a Red Bull benefit. Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez locked out the front row of the grid and romped to an unchallenged one-two.
But Suzuka has tended to be a strong circuit for McLaren in recent years. Even at this stage last year, before the Miami Grand Prix upgrade which transformed their car, they were quick over a single lap.
On the partially-resurfaced Suzuka track, only three teams are yet to beat their best times from last year. Of them, Aston Martin probably would have done had Fernando Alonso completed the lap he was on when he spun off at Degner One.
Tsunoda’s second practice session was compromised after he made a strong start in the opening hour. So far Verstappen’s weekend appears to be following its usual pattern, in that he spent Friday attempting different set-up solutions and not appearing particularly happy with them. He’s rebounded from deeper dips than this on a Saturday, however.
McLaren will head into Saturday as overwhelming favourites for pole position, and another front row lock-out is on the cards. However as we saw in Shanghai, the MCL39 is a tricky beast at the limit, and has caught its drivers out.
One further factor could disrupt the competitive order in qualifying: the wind direction is due to reverse, turning headwinds into tailwinds and vice-versa, which will have a significant effect upon the cars’ handling at a track where aerodynamic performance is critical. With the field so close, whoever can master that added challenge stands to claim a better qualifying position at a track where overtaking is often difficult.
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Pictures from practice for the 2025 Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka.
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The FIA is taking measures to prevent further disruption to the Japanese Grand Prix weekend following the grass fires which occured during second practice.
The session was red-flagged on two occasions after patches of grass caught fire by the track’s edge. They appeared to be ignited by sparks created by passing Formula 1 cars as their floors struck the ground at speed.
A spokesperson confirmed in a statement a series of steps are being taken to reduce the chance of further fires occuring. This includes cutting the grass as short as possible and removing dried grass from the areas.
The grass patches around the circuit will be watered down prior to the start of final practice and qualifying at the track on Saturday. The spokesperson also said specialist response teams will be ready to respond to any fires which do break out.
Weather conditions at the Suzuka circuit have been dry and sunny in recent days and much of the grassy areas by the edge of the track have dried out. More sunshine is expected tomorrow but the weather forecast for Sunday indicates a strong chance of showers.
This is the second time in as many years a grand prix weekend has been affected by grass fires. The sole practice session at last year’s Chinese Grand Prix was stopped after patches of grass caught fire.
Lap times have fallen sharply at Suzuka this year after several of the fastest corners on the track were resurfaced. Drivers have already lapped quicker than last year’s pole position time.
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The fires caused two of the four stoppages during the second practice session. The other two were caused by Jack Doohan’s crash at turn one and Fernando Alonso’s spin into a gravel bed at Degner One.
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The stewards have issued formal warnings to Lewis Hamilton and Lance Stroll for overtaking their rivals in the pit lane during practice.
The drivers’ teams were also warned after both were found to have violated the race director’s instructions on how drivers should join the fast lane of the pits when leaving the garages.
Drivers are forbidden from overtaking any cars which are in the fast lane of the pits by passing through the inner lane or working lane. The rules on when a car is considered to be inside the fast lane have been tightened in recent seasons due to an increase in drivers queueing at the pit lane exit anticipating the beginning or resumption of a session.
The stewards found both Hamilton and Stroll “overtook several cars in the fast lane whilst traversing the working lane to the practice start area” during the second practice session. Stroll did so following the second red flag and Hamilton did after the third.
The race director’s notes for this event define precisely how drivers may join the fast lane and that they should not be overtaken once inside it unless their car stops with an “obvious mechanical problem.”
“Any car(s) driven to the end of the pit lane prior to the start or restart of a free practice session [or] qualifying session must form up in a line in the fast lane and leave in the order they got there,” the instruction explains.
“A car will be considered to be ‘in the fast lane’ when a tyre has crossed the solid white line separating the fast lane from the inner lane, in this context crossing means that all of a tyre should be beyond the far side, with respect to the garages, of the line separating the fast lane from the inner lane.”
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“After the start or restart of a free practice session [or] qualifying session, if there is a suitable
gap in a queue of cars in the fast lane, such that a driver can blend into the fast lane safely and without unnecessarily impeding cars already in the fast lane, they are free to do so,” it adds.
“During a free practice session and qualifying session a car driving in the inner lane, parallel to the fast lane, will not be considered to have blended into the fast lane at the earliest opportunity.”
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Yuki Tsunoda admitted Red Bull’s car is trickier to drive in real life than it is in the simulator, after his first run in it today.
However the team’s new driver showed promising pace in the first practice session for the Japanese Grand Prix. He lapped just a tenth of a second slower than team mate Max Verstappen.
Tsunoda was a victim of the heavily disrupted second practice session as he was not able to set a representative lap time. He ended up 18th on the times sheets, 10 places behind Verstappen.
“FP1 was better than expected,” Tsunoda said afterwards, “a good start for myself. But in FP2 I didn’t set a lap time.”
“I think lots of work to do, maybe I slightly struggled or there’s something that we have to look [at more] through data in FP2. But so far overall it’s okay, I just have to build up confidence more.”
After being called up to replace Liam Lawson in Red Bull’s line-up from this weekend, Tsunoda had only driven the team’s 2025 in the simulator before getting behind the wheel for the first time today. He said the real machine was a little harder to handle than the simulation.
“It’s a bit different to the simulator, what I felt, to be honest, maybe a little bit more than I expected in terms of car feeling,” he told the official F1 channel.
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“But I knew anyway it’s always going to be a bit different in the real car, and it was just a little more exaggerated in the car, feeling a bit more tricky.”
Verstappen ended the day’s running eighth fastest, half a second off the pace. He said he isn’t fully comfortable with his car yet.
“Today’s been quite difficult for me, just trying a lot of different things with the car, but it seems like a lot things are not really clicking at the moment,” he said.
“It’s quite difficult just to put the lap down. You need a lot confidence and commitment around here, and at the moment I don’t feel like I can use that, so we still have a bit of work to do.”
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Alpine has confirmed the cause of Jack Doohan’s huge crash in the second practice session for the Japanese Grand Prix.
Team principal Oliver Oakes said Doohan failed to close his Drag Reduction System as he entered the first corner.
The Alpine driver spun into a barrier at turn one on his fifth lap of the session. As the corner is taken at such high speeds, drivers may not brake as they turn into it, and therefore have to deactivate DRS manually.
“We are all relieved to see Jack walk away from his incident in free practice two and glad to see he is okay after his precautionary checks,” said Oakes.
“It was a misjudgement of not closing the DRS into turn one. It is something to learn from and I know Jack and the team will be ready for tomorrow. His crew will work hard to have the car prepared after the damage.”
Doohan was able to climb out of his car afterwards. He was bemused by the crash and asked his race engineer “did something happen?” as soon as his car came to a rest.
The driver asked his race engineer twice more for an explanation while reassuring him he was unhurt. “We’ll just come back to you, mate,” Doohan was told. “We’re just looking at everything on our side here.”
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Doohan said he was “okay” after the crash. “It was a heavy one, something that caught me by surprise, and I will learn from it.”
The crash leaves Doohan very short of mileage after the first day of running at Suzuka. He did not participate in the first practice session as Alpine chose to run Ryo Hirakawa in his car.
His car was heavily damaged in the crash, which caused the session to be stopped for over 20 minutes so the barriers he hit could be repaired. “I know the team has a lot of work ahead to repair the car going into tomorrow, so thanks in advance to them for their efforts,” he said.
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Jack Doohan was at a loss to explain his huge crash in the second practice session for the Japanese Grand Prix.
The Alpine driver spun into a barrier at turn one on his fifth lap of the session. Replays from the crash indicated his DRS may not have closed as he turned into the corner. As the corner is taken at such high speeds, drivers may not brake as they turn into it, and therefore have to deactivate DRS manually.
Doohan was able to climb out of his car afterwards. He was bemused by the crash and asked his race engineer “did something happen?” as soon as his car came to a rest.
Doohan asked his race engineer twice more for an explanation while reassuring him he was unhurt. “We’ll just come back to you, mate,” Doohan was told. “We’re just looking at everything on our side here.”
The crash leaves Doohan very short of mileage after the first day of running at Suzuka. He did not participate in the first practice session as Alpine chose to run Ryo Hirakawa in his car.
His car was heavily damaged in the crash, which caused the session to be stopped for over 20 minutes so the barriers he hit could be repaired. Cars typically approach Suzuka’s turn one at around 265kph.
This article will be updated
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Oscar Piastri kept McLaren on top of the times at Suzuka after no fewer than four red flags disrupted the second hour of running.
The first stoppage was caused by an enormous crash for Jack Doohan at turn one. His Alpine snapped around as he turned into the 265kph corner, then made heavy contact with the barrier on the outside.
Doohan climbed out of his car and appeared to be largely unhurt. His A525 was heavily damaged, however, as was the barrier, and the session was interrupted for over 20 minutes while the crash scene was made safe.
When the session resumed, it was only for a few minutes, as Fernando Alonso soon skidded off at Degner One and got stuck in the gravel trap. The Aston Martin driver touched the grass on the way into the corner, sending him wide.
That stoppage was bad news for Yuki Tsunoda, who was the first driver from the front-running teams to embark on a qualifying simulation. He had to abort his run on the soft tyres which left him an unrepresentative 18th in the final times.
After Alonso’s car was recovered and the session restarted once more, most drivers pounced on the opportunity to get flying laps in. The Racing Bulls pair showed remarkable pace, Isack Hadjar briefly topping the times. At this point the leading six cars were covered by less than a tenth of a second.
Lando Norris put a stop to that, however, lapping over three tenths of a second faster. Soon afterwards more red flags put a stop to the session, this time due to a grass fire near the approach to Degner One. It appeared a shower of sparks from a passing car had ignited the dry patch of turf.
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Following the third restart Piastri beat his team mate’s time by less than five hundredths of a second to complete a McLaren one-two. However Liam Lawson backed his team mate up in fifth place, the Racing Bulls duo split by Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari.
Max Verstappen was the quickest of the two Red Bull drivers in a lowly eighth place, over half a second off the pace, with George Russell and Charles Leclerc separating him from the top five. “It’s like I have no front end at all,” he told race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase. “Understeering everywhere.”
Pierre Gasly gave Alpine some cheer following Doohan’s crash by setting the ninth-fastest time. Carlos Sainz Jnr, who pitted early in the session after reporting severe bouncing in his Williams, ended up 10th.
As the final seconds of the session ticked down the red flags appeared for a fourth time. This was again due to a trackside fire, which appeared to spread with alarming speed, and will give the organisers cause for concern for the rest of the weekend.
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