Report: Scoring more points in Suzuka

Alex made it a third successive points-scoring race with P9 in Japan

Published

06 APR 2025

Est. reading time

3 min

Alex Albon made it three grands prix running for top-10 finishes as he secured a P9 finish in the 2025 Japanese Grand Prix.

His third Q3 appearance meant Alex would start the race from the fifth row, and he remained in the middle of a midfield fight throughout the 53 laps.

Ollie Bearman attacked the Atlassian Williams car in the first corners after lights out, keeping Alex busy on the opening tour. Unphased by the Haas driver's attack, Alex kept close to Lewis Hamilton's Ferrari ahead to shake off the Briton and retain P9. Alex began the race on the Medium compound, with Hamilton on the Hard, and the two were closely matched on the opening tours.

The race soon settled into a consistent rhythm as the drivers spread out. Hamilton's rear wing swapped for Isack Hadjar's as the seven-time champion overtook the Racing Bull to give Alex a new target. The French driver had speed, though, while Alex dealt with upshift problems and managed to break out of DRS range.

"These shifts are so bad," was the fiery radio message from Alex's cockpit as he tried to manage the situation in the opening stint. With the gap to Bearman behind continuing to extend, Alex pushed past the Lap 20 point to pit, eventually reaching P5 as the frontrunners stopped for fresh Pirellis.

A trip to the pit box finally came at the end of Lap 24 to cover off Bearman, who had stopped one lap earlier. Like the previous race in China, Alex was among the leaders when he stopped, and he escaped the fight between Max Verstappen and the McLaren duo when he peeled into the pit lane.

Now equipped with fresh Hard tyres, Albono returned to the track in P13 and began an overtaking blitz. Gabriel Bortoleto was the first to fall. A DRS-assisted stop down the start-finish straight saw the Sauber fall behind. Esteban Ocon's Alpine was next, with a similar pass but sweeping to the outside into Turn 1.

Hadjar remained ahead, and Albono's Williams teammate Carlos Sainz played the team game to hold up the Racing Bull for a short while but promptly moved aside for Alex when the sister car got close at 130R's exit.

A similar strategy for Racing Bull had Liam Lawson letting Hadjar through as the pit stop strategies mixed up the order. Lawson couldn't hold off Alex for long, though, as Albono outbraked the New Zealander into the final chicane.

With all drivers finally pitting, the race mostly continued in the same order. Alex, now back in P9, slowly closed in on Hadjar while extending the gap to Bearman. Albono would cross the line 3.2s away from P8 and a vast 14.1s in front of the Haas to pick up two more points for his 2025 tally.

Crossing the line, Alex spoke to the team and James Vowles over the radio.

"Well done, Alex. It's a good result," said Team Principal James Vowles.

"Two more points to add to our tally and we've got another two races that will be strong for us. Well done. I think that's all we had today."

Meanwhile, Alex's race engineer, James Urwin, told his driver, "Well done. I wouldn't say it looked the easiest one to drive, but well done."

Alex replied, "Yeah, it got better at the end, for sure."

Stepping out of the cockpit, Albono expanded on his time in Japan over the weekend and why there were frustrations over his radio:

"We’ve been experimenting with shift settings all weekend and we thought we’d finally landed on something we were happy with.

"Turns out, it actually felt much better in Qualifying than it did in the race. The car wasn’t easy to drive in the conditions either.

"In Practice on Friday, the wind suited us more, but it was completely different today.

"We still scored points though! It just shows that even on days when we’re not that optimal, we’re able to score points. In that sense, I’m very happy."