George Russell appears to be the biggest threat to another 2025 McLaren pole position on the evidence of final practice at the Japanese Grand Prix - but the threat of track fires could mix up qualifying.
Friday's Suzuka action was stopped twice with two fires in second practice and final practice featured two further red flags for fires on the exit of the hairpin and later the entry into 130R.
Both were likely caused by sparks igniting the grass, with the latter incident seemingly triggered by Gabriel Bortoleto running his Sauber onto the grass there.
After FP3 the FIA said: "Ahead of qualifying, all available time and resources will be focused on further dampening the grass before the session."
The frontrunners had already got their qualifying simulations in before that late-session red flag cost the last five minutes of the session.
Lando Norris topped FP3 on a 1m27.965s, the fastest lap of the Suzuka weekend so far. He's had to rebound from a trip through the gravel on the exit of Degner 2 earlier in the session.
Oscar and Lando pushing those limits on the soft tyres 👀#F1 #JapaneseGP pic.twitter.com/7LINBQtMe9
— Formula 1 (@F1) April 5, 2025
That was 0.026s quicker than his McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri who in turn was just 0.086s faster than Russell's Mercedes
Charles Leclerc's Ferrari was fourth fastest, almost four and a half tenths adrift of Norris's benchmark.
He was followed by Max Verstappen and his Ferrari team-mate Lewis Hamilton with Alex Albon and Pierre Gasly leading the midfield in seventh and eighth.
Yuki Tsunoda lapped within three tenths of Verstappen in ninth, ahead of his former Racing Bulls team-mate Isack Hadjar.
How Tsunoda got on
Edd Straw
Tsunoda's third session as a Red Bull Racing driver went well, lapping exactly a tenth off team-mate Max Verstappen during their first soft tyre flying laps.
Like his team-mate, he focused on hard-tyre running early on and was troubleshooting understeer in the high-speed sector one. That was tackled first with some extra front-wing flap being added then the diff settings changed to be a step more open.
He then headed out on softs with 18 minutes to go, and with both he and Verstappen setting their best laps on their first flier on softs he set a similar pace in sector one - just over half-a-tenth off - but lost 0.163s in the second sector.
This was largely down to a moment of instability at Turn 11, which led to him asking if there was a gust of wind there - to which he was told there was slightly more than on the previous lap but not by a massive amount.
He gained 0.125s on Verstappen in the final sector to pull it back to a gap of exactly 0.1s before Verstappen's late improvement pulled him almost three tenths clear by gaining two tenths in the final sector.
Scott's trackside view
Scott Mitchell-Malm
The order of the lead four teams is no surprise based on the view trackside at the high-speed Esses.
The McLaren is dazzlingly good with its direction change and the Mercedes is almost as impressive - Ferrari too, but with a hint more instability. The Red Bull’s decent, it seems stable on the outside, but not as quick. It looks like it might need to be driven or set up more safely than the others.
Tsunoda looks almost as strong as Verstappen here, certainly not evidently weaker.
Another point of note is how committed Pierre Gasly looked and, inevitably, how cautious team-mate Jack Doohan was by comparison as he builds up after yesterday’s crash.
FP3 results
1 Lando Norris (McLaren)
2 Oscar Piastri (McLaren)
3 George Russell (Mercedes)
4 Charles Leclerc (Ferrari)
5 Max Verstappen (Red Bull)
6 Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari)
7 Alex Albon (Williams)
8 Pierre Gasly (Alpine)
9 Yuki Tsunoda (Red Bull)
10 Isack Hadjar (Racing Bulls)
11 Carlos Sainz (Williams)
12 Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls)
13 Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes)
14 Jack Doohan (Alpine)
15 Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin)
16 Ollie Bearman (Haas)
17 Gabriel Bortoleto (Sauber)
18 Esteban Ocon (Haas)
19 Lance Stroll (Aston Martin)
20 Nico Hulkenberg (Sauber)
