F1 Japanese GP preview: Mercedes face McLaren qualifying threat but race pace gap looms

Mercedes entered the season as hot favourites in the World Championship battles for the first time since 2021, and wins in Australia and China for George Russell and Kimi Antonelli, respectively, highlighted that.

It looked to be the same at the Japanese Grand Prix as things got underway with FP1 at Suzuka, with Russell and Antonelli leading the way ahead of Lando Norris.

However, in FP2, Norris' teammate Oscar Piastri found some fine pace to top the timing sheets in FP2 ahead of Antonelli and Russell and show that McLaren are not relinquishing their World Championships without a fight.

Norris ended the day in P4, while Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton could only come in P5 and P6, respectively.

Nico Hulkenberg was the best of the rest, while Max Verstappen and Red Bull's woes continue, finishing 1.3 seconds off the pace down in P10.

Friday's proceedings show a battle between Mercedes and McLaren is expected in qualifying, while Ferrari may have to settle for the third row on the grid before Sunday's Grand Prix.

But can McLaren keep up the pace shown on Friday when it matters most? Ferrari's Sporting Director, Diego Ioverno, was not too worried about the Scuderia's race pace compared to the British team's, despite being well off the pace throughout the free practice sessions.

Mercedes' race pace seemed to be pretty dominant once again, but a thrilling battle for the final podium space could be in store.

To give some in-depth analysis from Friday's running and what that might mean for Saturday and Sunday's proceedings, here is our F1 Tech writer, Francesco Bianchi!

Analysing the data from the first day of running in Suzuka, McLaren showed a very strong performance in the qualifying simulation, while Mercedes dominated the scene in the race pace simulations with high fuel load.

The MCL40, in fact, showed off a very aggressive energy deployment strategy over the single lap as well as a very efficient car in the last chicane, where Piastri was gaining time on Antonelli in the traction phase.

Despite the good performance in the slow speed corners, which highlight the good mechanical system, the MCL40 still lacks downforce, which a big penalising factor in terms of tyre management: not by accident, in fact, Piastri was almost a second slower on average compared to Antonelli and Russell, who had a much more superior car from a chassis and aerodynamic point of view.

As a consequence, McLaren could threat Mercedes during qualifying, taking advantage of the soft tyre to cover some weaknesses of the car, but the real gap will probably emerge during Sunday’s race, as tyre management and balance come into play and, from this point of view, Mercedes is the absolute favourite (also seen their performance in the first two races of the season).

If qualifying seems to be a battle between the four Mercedes-powered cars, with Ferrari and Red Bull Racing a bit further behind, the race seems a bit more open, especially with Ferrari and McLaren.

The Maranello-based team faced some balance issues on Friday but, as it happened in China and in Melbourne, they usually have some very competitive race pace, especially on high fuel load, which is where McLaren struggles. Based on this assumption, Ferrari could be faster in the first stint of the race, while the Woking team could emerge towards the end of the race, thanks to a more solid performance on low fuel loads.

For Red Bull Racing, they will have to watch out for all other teams behind them. The performance seen on track today, despite the updates brought on Verstappen’s car, still shows a very nervous car on both front-end and rear-end, and on all compounds, which is a worrying sign both for qualifying and for the race as well.

Verstappen, in fact, was lapping almost two seconds slower than Antonelli at times during the race pace simulations done in FP2, despite using the hard tyre. As a consequence, another difficult weekend is expected for the four-time World Champion, who will need all his talent to try and help the team get out of a difficult beginning of 2026.