Kimi Antonelli’s second win of the 2026 season at Suzuka moved the Italian teenager nine points clear of Mercedes team-mate George Russell in the drivers’ championship. Russell could manage only fourth, while Oscar Piastri recovered from two non-starts in the opening grands prix to finish second and Charles Leclerc completed the podium for Ferrari in third.
Japanese Grand Prix driver ratings
Kimi Antonelli - 8.5
Antonelli arrived in Japan with a fair bit of momentum after his breakthrough victory in China and was on it straight away at Suzuka. He had the edge over Russell in qualifying, although another messy launch dropped him back to sixth early in the race. The Mercedes had the speed to contend, but it still felt like the win depended on the safety car giving him a rather helpful hand. Racing, it turns out, remains a game of timing as much as talent.
Oscar Piastri - 9
When Piastri actually starts a race, he tends to make a bit of a habit of scoring heavily. He was sharp from the outset and already had a Friday advantage over McLaren team-mate Lando Norris thanks to reliability troubles on the other car. Even so, he nailed the start, cleared both Mercedes into Turn One and managed the opening stint with real authority. The safety car timing did him no favours, and without that interruption he may well have had Antonelli in his sights for the win.
Charles Leclerc - 8
Leclerc was ahead of Ferrari team-mate Lewis Hamilton from the beginning, even though neither driver sounded especially thrilled with the car. He looked strong in qualifying and, despite his own modesty about the final lap, there was a real chance he could have beaten Piastri to second. His launch on lap one was excellent, the wheel-to-wheel fighting was crisp throughout, and he had more than one tense moment in combat with Hamilton. He then held off Russell to the flag. A proper day’s work.
George Russell - 7
Russell had the pace you would expect, but a suspension tweak after qualifying seemed to unsettle things a little. His start was poor, though not quite as dramatic as Antonelli’s, and that immediately put him on the back foot. The safety car handed him an awkward hand of cards, but he still could not force his way through the field or find a route past Leclerc for the final podium spot.
Lando Norris - 8
Given the amount of running he missed, Norris did well to salvage a result at all. Reliability problems repeatedly disrupted his weekend, and he was apparently working with the kind of battery situation that makes engineers lose sleep. There was clearly more speed available, but after barely any high-fuel running before the race, this was a solid recovery drive in difficult circumstances. Not perfect, but under the circumstances it was a decent piece of damage limitation.
Lewis Hamilton - 6
Hamilton never looked fully settled in the Ferrari. He was sliding around through practice and never really seemed to have Leclerc covered across the weekend. He did involve himself in a few battles, which was useful for everyone watching and presumably less useful for his blood pressure. He was also not going to simply step aside for his team-mate, which gave us some properly enjoyable wheel-to-wheel racing.
Pierre Gasly - 9
My standout of the weekend, along with Piastri. The Alpine is still a difficult car, but Gasly used all of his experience to drag it to best of the rest in qualifying and then back that up in the race, even with Verstappen breathing down his neck for much of the grand prix. That is a serious drive in machinery that still looks far from straightforward.
Max Verstappen - 6
Another weekend where the Red Bull simply was not there for him. A fairly substantial upgrade appeared to make little difference, which is rarely the sort of update sheet a team is hoping to explain. That was followed by more talk about his future, because Formula 1 absolutely never adds extra drama when it can resist the urge.
Liam Lawson - 7
A fairly quiet weekend for Lawson, who never really jumped off the page. An odd front wing issue stopped him from making Q3, unlike Racing Bulls team-mate Arvid Lindblad, but he still did enough to get himself into the points. The safety car helped him score a cheap pit stop and he used that to hold off Esteban Ocon for ninth.
Esteban Ocon - 7
Welcome back to the points, Esteban. This was a better weekend from the Frenchman. It was not spectacular, but he made it through to Q2 and had the upper hand over Haas team-mate Oliver Bearman, who has been getting much of the attention so far this year.
Nico Hülkenberg - 6
A mistake cost Hülkenberg a shot at Q3, and an untimely pit stop meant he could not really make the most of the safety car during the race. That left him with another missed opportunity to score, which is becoming a frustrating theme.
Isack Hadjar - 6
The good news for Hadjar is that he is not being swallowed by the supposed curse of the Red Bull second seat. The less good news is that the car itself is not performing at the level it should. He did outqualify Verstappen, which is the kind of line that will look nice in the notebook, but the race was a tougher story.
Gabriel Bortoleto - 6
Bortoleto secured a second top-10 start of the year, only for the race to begin badly with a rough getaway at the lights. He recovered reasonably well after that, but faded toward the end. A mixed weekend, then, with some promise and some frustration, which is fairly standard issue in this line of work.
Arvid Lindblad - 8
Lindblad was short on laps in practice, yet still managed to knock Verstappen out in Q2 and produce a brilliant start to the race. He kept Hadjar behind him early on, but his afternoon was ultimately damaged by the safety car. Still, there was plenty to like here.
Carlos Sainz - 6
A fresh haircut was not quite enough to drag Sainz into the points for a second straight race. Even so, it felt as though he extracted the maximum from what Williams had underneath him. No heroics, but no obvious waste either.
Franco Colapinto - 4
China was a very different story, because things turned sour quickly in Japan. Colapinto never seemed fully at ease with the Alpine, and his heavy slowing into Spoon Curve was a scary moment that preceded Oliver Bearman’s 50G crash. It was a harsh reminder that modern Formula 1 is built around serious safety measures for very serious reasons.
Sergio Perez - 7
Perez had a bumpy start to the weekend after colliding with Alex Albon’s Williams and continuing to complain about vague deployment issues. Even so, he outqualified Cadillac team-mate Valtteri Bottas and finished ahead of both Aston Martins in the race. Not clean, not simple, but better than the opening act suggested.
Fernando Alonso - 7
Alonso finally saw a chequered flag this year. That alone probably counts as the headline for Aston Martin’s weekend. It was not a glorious return to form, but it was at least a finish, and the team could probably use the next few weeks before Miami to catch its breath.
Valtteri Bottas - 6
Bottas had an upgrade and appeared to be making some progress, but Perez still got the better of him in Japan. That leaves him with work to do, even if the underlying signs were not completely bleak.
Alex Albon - 5
Another difficult weekend for Albon, with some cryptic radio messages in qualifying suggesting all is not exactly serene within Williams. The race itself was effectively turned into a testing session, which is rarely a sign that things are going brilliantly.
Lance Stroll - 5
A second straight year of qualifying last for the Japanese Grand Prix is not the kind of statistic anyone is eager to frame. Stroll spent most of the race stuck at the back until Aston Martin retired the car.
Oliver Bearman - 4
Bearman has been one of the season’s bright spots so far, but Japan went badly for him. He went out in Q1 with a suspected technical problem, and even when he did get a lap in, the pace was not there. The race crash was not his fault, but he may have misjudged his speed slightly before the impact. Thankfully, he walked away from a huge shunt and will have time to recover before racing resumes in early May.
Final word
Suzuka gave us a little bit of everything: Antonelli extending his championship lead, Piastri finally converting pace into a proper result, Gasly extracting something close to magic from an Alpine, and several drivers being reminded that weekends can unravel very quickly. Formula 1, as ever, remains committed to making simple things look complicated.
