McLaren's early Suzuka advantage is deceptive in two ways
McLaren may have topped the timesheets in Friday practice for the Japanese Grand Prix, but the wider picture indicated Mercedes still has a clear advantage around Suzuka. However, while McLaren's single-lap pace perhaps flattered it, its long-run deficit was smaller than it first appeared.
All of that confirms McLaren is making progress. At Suzuka today, McLaren team principal Andrea Stella claimed its deficit to Mercedes in terms of exploiting the power unit is now “pretty small”, pointing to the need to improve the chassis thanks to its grip deficit. And around a circuit like Suzuka, relatively harvest-poor like Albert Park but with a very different combination of corners that made the energy-management challenge an even more complicated one, downforce still matters.
“Oscar finished P1, which I think is always nice to see, but similar to pace in Australia on Friday and I think the pecking order generally looks pretty much the same in broad terms,” was McLaren racing director Randy Singh’s conclusion. And it seemed a fair one when you dig into the numbers.
In terms of single-lap pace, Oscar Piastri was quickest as he led the line for McLaren, given team-mate Lando Norris’s FP2 was disrupted by delays as a hydraulic problem was fixed. “A pretty terrible start to the weekend”, as Norris put it.
Single lap pace
1 McLaren 1m30.133s
2 Mercedes +0.092s
3 Ferrari +0.713s
4 Audi +1.308s
5 Williams +1.363s
6 Haas +1.365s
7 Red Bull +1.376s
8 Racing Bulls +1.457s
9 Alpine +1.601s
10 Cadillac +2.482s
11 Aston Martin +3.463s
However, Piastri's advantage was just 0.092s over Kimi Antonelli’s Mercedes. There was a clear difference in terms of deployment strategy, with McLaren gaining with more power used approaching Turn 1, with the pendulum swinging later in the lap and losing out approaching the chicane. Chances are, come tomorrow, with the resurfaced track gripping up and everything optimised, that McLaren's single-lap edge will disappear when it comes to Mercedes, which had another solid day.
One box Mercedes also ticked was checking its front wing was working as intended after the problems in China that have triggered so much discussion.“That all seems to be better under control than it was in China," said newly-promoted deputy team principal Bradley Lord.
The pendulum had already swung in favour of Mercedes when it came to the Friday long runs. This ranking includes all drivers with at least partially relevant and representative runs, with anomalous laps eliminated. It not only shows that thermal degradation is not a significant problem at the resurfaced track, particularly compared to what was a far rougher Suzuka track surface several years ago, but also indicates Mercedes remains firmly on top.
Long runs FP2
Antonelli 1m34.780s (7 laps) M
Russell 1m35.020s (7 laps) M
Leclerc 1m35.442s (7 laps) M
Piastri 1m35.744s (7 laps) M
Hadjar 1m36.025s (6 laps) M
Gasly 1m36.081s (8 laps) H
Ocon 1m36.190s (10 laps) M
Hamilton 1m36.221s (3 laps) M
Bearman 1m36.235s (10 laps) M
Verstappen 1m36.273s (12 laps) M
Hulkenberg 1m36.485s (6 laps) H
Colapinto 1m36.791s (10 laps) M
Lawson 1m36.835s (8 laps) M
Albon 1m37.248s (9 laps) M
Sainz 1m37.260s (7 laps) H
Bottas 1m37.985s (11 laps) M
Perez 1m38.149s (5 laps) H
Alonso 1m38.555s (4 laps) S
A caveat must be added to this in that Piastri ended up in traffic on his long run, meaning that you can easily hack half-a-second off his pace. That still puts McLaren behind, but not as far behind as the pure numbers suggest and confirms it is making progress - and could potentially do battle with Ferrari for second-best. Certainly, were there a qualifying session held on Friday, you'd assume that McLaren would have a good chance of beating it.
Ferrari had what Charles Leclerc described as “a more tricky day compared to the last two races” and declared the race pace “OK”. That was backed up by the numbers, but it’s clear there’s some work to do on the setup of the car and optimising deployment, with Hamilton in particular complaining about the balance. During FP2, he reported “I’ve got no confidence” in the car over the radio, but speaking after, he suggested that gains are there to be made.
“Ultimately, there’s a lot of time on the straights,” said Hamilton. “It’s four tenths [lost] into Turn 1 at the moment compared to the McLaren. So deployment is part of it. I'm sure we can do a better job in improving on that. And then there's more performance in the car to extract if we can get the set-up right.”
The midfield
Just as in China, Red Bull is struggling at Suzuka and therefore it’s logical to consider it as part of this midfield battle. On single-lap pace, behind Audi, Williams and Haas, it was back at the front of that pack by a slender margin over Alpine, on long runs courtesy of Hadjar’s speed.
Max Verstappen was, unsurprisingly, not happy and couldn’t find a good balance. Set-up changes between sessions served only to move the limitation around and he complained of “going from one extreme to another extreme” - ominously suggesting there would be “no quick fix”.
The rest of the midfield painted an ostensibly confusing picture, with Audi leading the way on single-lap pace as the fourth-fastest car on pace, but shuffled back to seventh-quickest on the long runs, albeit with Nico Hulkenberg running hards for that stint.
“We had to do a bit of homework this morning and look at really where we were in FP1,” said Audi technical director James Key. “We made some really good steps for FP2.”
Williams was unexpectedly second-quickest midfielder courtesy of Alex Albon, but slumped on long-run pace.
“It seemed like at least on the low fuel and short runs we were at least playing around in the midfield and mixing it up with them,” said Carlos Sainz.
“Unfortunately, when we moved to high fuel, it was a shocker how much of a step backwards we took again. As a team, we need to analyse what's making us more competitive in low fuel this weekend and then what is then bringing us back to China level in high fuel - or even worse than China in high fuel. So some good and bad there, maybe bit more good than bad. In the end, it's a good sign that we at least could mix it up in the low-fuel.”
Alpine was the other way round, struggling on single-lap pace but looking good on long-run pace, judged by Pierre Gasly’s strong stint on hards. The Alpine is still limited by high-speed understeer and that was always going to be a problem at Suzuka, especially given the main limitation everyone battled was the front end mid-corner. But just as in Melbourne, that problem is mitigated for Alpine in race trim.“We knew coming here with all the high-speed, it could be more tricky,” said Gasly.
“It’s been the case since this morning. We struggled with the high speed limitation we've had since Bahrain. In FP2 we made a step forward, but still struggling with the understeer into all these high-speed, medium-high-speed corners, so still more to come.”
The most rounded midfield performer again appeared to be Haas, who looked decent on both long-run and single-lap pace. Team principal Ayao Komatsu said it's now it’s just a case of “fine-tuning”, which is a solid position to be in, given there were some problems in FP1 for Ollie Bearman in terms of chasing the set-up after front wing upgrades.
Racing Bulls also showed promise in FP1 in particular before slipping back a little on both single-lap and long-run pace in FP2. That wasn’t helped by Arvid Lindblad losing FP2 to gearbox problems, but amid such a condensed midfield pack, he suggested the team looked slightly more competitive than it was in China. It all points to a ferocious battle for the lower Q3 slots.
At the back, Cadillac again showed it had the pace to do battle with and even beat Aston Martin. Cadillac’s day was disrupted by Sergio Perez’s late start to FP2 as the team prepared the car after the collision with Alex Albon in FP1, but other than that, there was reason to be satisfied with its first day of running at Suzuka. Valtteri Bottas went as far as to call it “the best day so far we’ve had on a race weekend” with “not a single issue” on his side of the garage.
As for Aston Martin, team representative Pedro de la Rosa revealed that chasing performance still isn’t top of the agenda.
“We haven’t really focused very much on that,” said de la Rosa when asked about the pace. “We’re trying to get the best possible balance, mitigate the vibrations as much as we can, and then move from there.”
With the tyre degradation suggesting this will be a one-stop race and question marks over whether overtaking will be as abundant as it was in Australia and China given the track configuration, Saturday’s qualifying session will be key.
And with plenty to slice and dice when it comes to harvesting and deployment strategies, expect the pattern to shift overnight - but don’t bet on anyone other than Mercedes leading the way.
