Welcome to the 3rd round of the 2026 F1 world championship from Suzuka, Japan.

Qualifying:

Following on from the first 2 grand prix of the year, the Mercedes team continues to dominate with young gun Kimi Antonelli taking poll position from his team mate George Russell who is leading the championship by 4 points thanks to winning the Chinese Grand Prix sprint race while Kimi only managed a 5th place.

Third qualifier was Oscar Piastri who has failed to start the first 2 grand prix of the year so he is surely hoping to actually participate in the race.

Qualifying 4th was Leclerc in the Ferrari then Norris in the McLaren from Hamilton in the other Ferrari.

Gasly managed to take 7th spot in his Alpine, while Hadjar was the first of the Red Bulls in 8th place.

Bortoleto put his Audi into 9th place with Lindblad taking the 10th spot in his Racing Bulls vehicle.

Verstappen only qualified in 11th place in his Red Bull so has it al to do again from an ordinary starting position.

The other surprise for me in the qualifying was the Aston Martins of Alonso and Stroll qualifying second last and last behind the 2 Cadillacs of Perez and Bottas.

The remaining qualifiers did not contain any surprises.

The Race:

What a start! Piastri makes a fantastic start and takes the lead into the first corner and keeps it up until he pits. Ferrari start well as does Norris but the Mercedes slip backwards.

All is looking good for Piastri keeping Russell at bay until Piastri pits followed one lap later by Russell.

Another lap later and Bearman decides to drive over the braking markers and spear across the track into the barriers causing a safety car to be deployed.

This was a gift to Antonelli who was able to take his one and only pit stop during the safety car and emerge from the pits in 1 st place which he never relinguished.

Piastri was able to take and hold second place but eventually finished some 13.7 seconds behind Antonelli but Piastri did appear to manage his second place well preventing the current 3rd place driver from getting close enough to make an overtaking move.

I say current as from 3rd to 6th places were being fought over towards the end of the race with Ferrari drivers trying to fight off Russell and Norris.

At one stage Hamilton was 3rd but was then aggressively passed by Leclerc and then eventually by Russell then Norris to be relegated back to finish in 6th place.

The other surprise of the day was Gasly coming home in 7th place in his Alpine, just ahead of Verstappen in his red Bull Racing car who took 8th place after almost loosing it on the last corner onto the finishing straight trying to get a run on Gasly.

Gasly drove a good race to maintain 7th and finished in the points unlike his teammate Colapinto who finished down in 16th .

Liam Lawson drove his Racing Bulls car into 9th place with Ocon finishing in 10th in his Haas to claim the final championship point.

It was an interesting race as the drivers appear to be coming to grips with the power boost to overtake but it seems such an artificial way to go racing to me but it is making the racing more interesting to the general populous and looking at the crowd numbers it appears to be working.

On another note, the pre-race interviews with Jack Black and co were awful but the Japanese Avantgardey Dance Group and the national anthem musicians were fantastic.

Well now we all have to wait until May 1 for the first practice for the Miami Grand Prix due to the conflicts in the middle east.

Looking forward to how the teams will progress over the forced break which should make for an interesting weekend of racing in Miami.

Until then, stay safe and enjoy the break.