McLaren will be the team to beat in qualifying for the Japanese Grand Prix as Lando Norris went fastest in FP3 while Oscar Piastri was second.
Norris posted a 1:27.965 to go fastest and was just 0.026s ahead of his teammate, Piastri in second as it appears that the fight for pole will be between the two McLaren drivers.
George Russell showed the Mercedes may be in the mix as he was the third fastest driver in the final practice session and was a little over one tenth off the pace of the Papaya cars. Kimi Antonelli was down in 13th.
Charles Leclerc followed in the Ferrari, fourth fastest and 0.449s off the pace and was less than a tenth ahead of Max Verstappen who was fifth in the Red Bull RB21.
Verstappen, in a radio message towards the end of the session summed up the situation with his car. The balance is all over the place!
Seven-time Formula 1 Champion, Lewis Hamilton, was sixth fastest in the other Ferrari, 0.559s down on the best time and was less than a tenth clear of Alex Albon who was seventh fastest in the Williams. Carlos Sainz was 11th.
Pierre Gasly was eighth fastest in the Alpine ahead of Yuki Tsunoda in ninth while Isack Hadjar was tenth.
Jack Doohan, who was able to take part after his massive accident on Friday, was 14th fastest. Liam Lawson was 12th.
Buildup towards FP3
The buildup of the 2025 Japanese Grand Prix on Friday was interesting to say the least with many stories hogging the headlines.
First there was the swap between Yuki Tsunoda and Liam Lawson at Red Bull Racing as both seem to have started their new jobs well enough.
Tsunoda was close to Verstappen in FP1 but there have been reports that Red Bull have given him a car biased towards easier driver rather than ultimate pace, not to mention the possibility of having a dialed up power unit. In all cases the truth will be revealed today in qualifying and hopefully of hint of what's to come in FP3.
Lawson did the job under the radar and was looking good in FP2 keeping mind that the four Red flags made that session a bit mundane and unrepresentative.
Speaking of Red flags, Doohan was lucky to escape his shunt unscathed during FP2 and was deemed fit to take part in FP3 after Alpine rebuilt his A525 from scratch, a totally new car except for the power unit that survived the crash.
The Alpine mechanics worked up to 3:00am local time to get the car ready the team naturally breaking curfew to get the job done.
The fires also were interesting and it seemed the dry grass was ignited by the sparks coming out of the cars but the organizers have cut all the grass overnight and will dampen the grass patched to avoid the problem today.
Pace-wise, McLaren are still the team to beat while Red Bull seem to have work to do. Mercedes and Ferrari seem there or thereabouts.
Let's see what FP3 brings.
FP3 Session Highlights
Clear conditions prevailed over the Suzuka track at the start of FP3 as track temperatures were 38 degrees Celsius with air temperature registering 18 degrees.
Doohan was the first driver to head out on track in his Alpine with Soft tyres bolted to try and get a feel of the car in qualifying trim as he was running a different program to Gasly.
Hadjar reported he had a problem in the cockpit. He didn't reveal it over the radio but said it was quite bad and returned to the pits.
He said: "I had a problem in the cockpit, I'll let you know after but it's quite bad."
Less than seven minute into the session, the Red flag was waving again around Suzuka as the grass caught fire for the third time this weekend. All those precautions did not work...
The session was restarted with a little over 45 minutes remaining and the drivers lined up in the pitlane waiting for the green light eager to get some running in.
Some drivers shifted to Soft tyres for some qualifying simulations with Piastri having a moment over the kerbs and dipping a wheel in the gravel. He survived it.
Piastri and Verstappen were going to be investigated after FP3 for failing to follow the race director's notes while exiting the pitlane.
Norris then had a similar moment to his teammate, going wide into Degner 2 and went into the gravel trap.
Red Bull asked Tsunoda about some flap changes on his front wing which were done to reduce understeer. He responded the changes made the car better but did not eradicate the understeer.
Hulkenberg had a close moment with Tsunoda while going into Turn 1 at speed. Very close, but thankfully no contact.
"Jeez, that looked a bit dodgy," the German driver radioed.
Stroll reported vibrations on his Aston Martin that felt like a wheel was not properly fixed as the Canadian described it.
Sainz reported a snap in Turn 6. He also had a full off-road excursion in his Williams.
More than 35 minutes passed and Verstappen was yet to post a lap time on Soft tyres as the four-time F1 champ was busing banging in the laps on the harder compound collecting data for the race.
Bortoleto was instructed to focus on the exit of Turn 9 after almost binning it there. The Brazilian jokingly admitted his error.
Norris, on a qualifying lap and having set the fastest sector 1, aborted his lap after running wide at Turn 9. He bailed out again on his second run.
The final 15 minutes saw all drivers pushing on qualifying runs on Soft tyres.
Leclerc had a moment with Albon while on a hot lap. He wasn't happy with the Williams driver... Naturally...
The fires were back again in the final six minutes of the session and the Red flag was out again. Replay shows Bortoleto going off track at the area which probably caused the fire.
But it was a great save from the Brazilian. Otherwise it would've been a serious crash at high speed. He said: "I saved it. Something broke in the tyre. Oh my God. F@ck me, it broke in the 130R, my God!"
Nothing broke, Bortoleto just ran wide into the grass...
The session was not resumed.
Japanese GP FP3 Classification
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