Author Archives: PressBox

At the Japanese Grand Prix in Suzuka, Ferrari’s straight-line speed and power-unit weakness — particularly the SF‑26’s lack of pace down the straights — were laid bare, drivers and team figures said. Charles Leclerc called the power unit “maybe our main weakness at the moment,” and Lewis Hamilton described a “really confusing” loss of power that left him struggling to defend and ultimately finish sixth. Team principal Fred Vasseur acknowledged a clear straight-line deficit and said the team must investigate whether it stems from engine power, timing/strategy or overtake-mode deployment; he and others pointed to Suzuka’s long straights as having exposed the problem.

The on-track consequences were immediate. Leclerc recovered from early Safety Car misfortune and an early pit stop that left him in traffic to fight back past teammates and rivals and secure third, but said he had to manage his tires carefully and that the Safety Car had hurt the team’s strategy. Hamilton briefly gained places by pitting under the Safety Car but slipped from a podium position as he struggled to extract performance from the SF‑26 and lost places to rivals; he suspected his engine was down because others had more straight-line speed despite running the same car. Vasseur noted Hamilton had dropped out of “overtake mode,” which removed an overtake boost and contributed to the drop-off.

Ferrari plans to use the upcoming month-long break to analyze the car and seek performance improvements before Miami, focusing on the power unit and straight-line performance while also advancing tires, aero and chassis work. Leclerc warned upgrades might not arrive in time for Miami, and reports from Suzuka prompted a renewed push to close the gap — the team opened the season clearly second behind Mercedes and appeared to lose ground to McLaren — even as Leclerc’s podiums provided a morale boost and Vasseur praised the driver’s racecraft in what he called one of the season’s most entertaining races.

Mercedes’ vulnerability — recurring poor race starts compounded by an inability to cope with traffic and dirty air — was laid bare at the Japanese Grand Prix in Suzuka. Team principal Toto Wolff conceded that ‘poor starts have been a recurring issue’, calling the team’s launches ‘mediocre’ and saying a bad getaway nearly cost them in Japan; he also admitted this was the third time this season Mercedes had to recover from a slow launch.

Former drivers Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve warned the team should be concerned, with Villeneuve adding that Mercedes’ package is “vulnerable in dirty air” and needs to be in “fresh air” to be competitive, because traffic and turbulent airflow limit recovery opportunities.

The race itself illustrated the problem. Kimi Antonelli, who started on pole and later won at Suzuka to become the youngest leader of the 2026 standings, botched his own launch and dropped to sixth before a late safety car — triggered by Ollie Bearman’s crash — and a timely pit stop reshaped the running and allowed him to retake the lead. Mercedes’ recovery efforts were visible but imperfect: George Russell fought back to fourth after a setup change left his W17 uncooperative and both Mercedes drivers were hampered by traffic. Wolff both praised Antonelli’s racecraft and quipped about modern drivers learning in “automatic driving schools” while again pointing to the team’s recurring poor getaways.

The combined pattern of slow starts and an aerodynamic/flow weakness when following other cars has prompted external concern and demonstrated that other teams and drivers can threaten Mercedes on race day. Unless the team addresses clutch/launch procedure and its loss of performance in dirty air, those vulnerabilities look set to undermine Mercedes’ results going forward.

Aston Martin’s weekend at the Japanese Grand Prix in Suzuka underlined that the team’s problems run well beyond simple reliability fixes. The team recorded its first race finish of the season, but both cars qualified on the back row. Fernando Alonso finished as a backmarker—widely reported as 18th, with one source listing him 19th—and Lance Stroll retired after roughly 30 laps with a suspected water-pressure issue.

Persistent Honda power-unit output and reliability problems, combined with chassis and aerodynamic weaknesses and excess weight, mean the AMR26 needs major upgrades to be competitive.

Team officials framed the result as incremental rather than celebratory; team principal Mike Krack called the outcome ‘not a cause for celebration,’ described it as ‘one small step,’ and warned there is a ‘mountain to climb.’

Oscar Piastri’s second-place finish at Suzuka underlined a clear step forward for both the driver and McLaren: it was his first podium and his first championship points of the 2026 season after he leaped into the lead at the start. Piastri, who had missed the opening two rounds with back-to-back DNSs, said McLaren is “closing the gap to Mercedes” and described the reigning team as “beatable.” He also suggested a Safety Car intervention, triggered by Oliver Bearman’s high‑G crash, altered the race’s outcome and said he would have liked to see how the event unfolded without it, adding he felt he had been “pulling away a little bit” before the neutralization.

The Suzuka result followed encouraging pace indicators earlier in the weekend: Piastri topped FP2 by around 0.1 seconds and converted that form into his best qualifying of the season, taking third on the grid — 0.354s off pole and roughly 0.056s behind George Russell — which gave McLaren a second-row start for the first time this year. Team figures framed the weekend as evidence of momentum: Andrea Stella credited closer collaboration with Mercedes HPP engineers and targeted setup work for lap-time gains, while McLaren CEO Zak Brown said the team will win “sooner rather than later.” At the same time Stella and Piastri cautioned that Mercedes still held a clear pace advantage and that a “pretty big gap” remained, highlighting the need to turn flashes of speed into consistent race results.

Reliability and energy-system issues also shaped the narrative of progress versus risk. McLaren dealt with a battery problem that disrupted Lando Norris’s FP3 and cost long-run data, fitted a third energy store during FP3, and Stella flagged recurring issues with the Mercedes-supplied battery module. The Suzuka race itself was heavily influenced by energy-management battles and pit-stop timing, and George Russell lost track position amid power and tire issues. McLaren said it will bring upgrades for the next race aimed at producing more consistent podiums and further developments later in the season intended to contend for wins, with Suzuka offering both a morale boost and a clear reminder of the work still to be done to fully close the gap to Mercedes.