One lap separated the Mercedes drivers

Coming to Suzuka the teams had two Grands Prix with the 2026 cars behind them, Melbourne and Shanghai, and now they arrived at the circuit that loads the tyres harder than any other on the calendar. Pirelli picked the three hardest compounds – C1 as hard, C2 as medium, C3 as soft – giving the C1 its season debut, according to F1.com. The reason is the long, fast corners through sector 1 and the constant changes of direction that generate very high lateral forces.

But Suzuka had also been resurfaced. Sector 1 was relaid ahead of 2025, and the work had now continued through most of sectors 2 and 3. Pirelli's expectation was that a smoother surface would give lower grip and a risk of graining, above all on the C3 soft, while cool temperatures should keep thermal degradation down, according to press.pirelli.com. That set up an interesting tension: enormous load on the tyres, but perhaps very little actual wear. Nobody knew whether one stop would hold.

The new asphalt turned out even smoother than expected, but with decent grip – and graining was not a problem. Pirelli's Simone Berra concluded after Friday that degradation was well under control and that all three compounds could feature in strategies that would almost certainly be one-stoppers, according to F1.com. Two uncertainties remained: the soft, which few had run over long stints, and the temperature, expected to be about ten degrees lower on Sunday.

McLaren did something Pirelli noted in particular: they were the only team not to run the hard at all on Friday. The reading was that they had deliberately saved both C1 sets for Sunday – two fresh hards to react with, to a Safety Car for instance, according to F1.com. The price was less first-hand information on the C1; the gain was maximum flexibility. With the other teams reporting very positively on the hard, McLaren could lean on Pirelli's overall picture.

After Saturday Pirelli's main line was clear. Medium to hard was the safe one-stopper with a window around laps 15–21; soft to hard was the more aggressive version, window 13–19, and almost as quick over the distance. Soft to medium was around ten seconds slower. Two stops – soft, hard, soft – was a wildcard that could become attractive if a Safety Car appeared, according to F1.com. But Suzuka historically has few neutralisations; F1 quoted roughly 50 percent for a Safety Car and 33 for a VSC, and a pit stop cost about 23.75 seconds.

The teams' answer was almost unanimous. When the blankets came off, 21 of 22 cars were on the medium. The only exception was Valtteri Bottas in the Cadillac – on the hard, according to F1.com. Nobody started on the soft, despite Pirelli saying it was almost as quick. Track position at a circuit where overtaking is hard outweighed a few tenths at the start.

Antonelli had pole, Russell P2, Piastri P3. Piastri took the lead into Turn 1 – and both Mercedes dropped back, but by different amounts. Russell was P4 after the first lap; Antonelli was P6, 3.5 seconds behind the leader. What followed was a recovery at two speeds: Russell passed Norris and Leclerc and was P2 by lap 5, 1.2 seconds behind Piastri. Antonelli needed until lap 15 to get past Leclerc for P3, by then 4.7 seconds back.

So when the pit window opened, Mercedes had two cars directly behind the leader, and McLaren a leader who could not pull away.

Norris stopped first, on lap 16, Leclerc on lap 17 – both inside Pirelli's window, both with pit-lane times of about 23 seconds that showed how closely the teams were tracking the model, according to F1.com. Piastri responded on lap 18, from the lead, with Russell 1.8 seconds behind him. He emerged P6, behind Gasly and Verstappen who had not stopped, and sat there for three laps before passing Verstappen on lap 21.

This is where the Mercedes story usually goes wrong. It is easy to say Russell "covered Piastri". But on lap 20 Russell led the race by 20.5 seconds over Piastri, and a stop cost almost 24. The undercut was already decided: Russell would come out behind Piastri whenever he stopped. His stop on lap 21 was damage limitation, not defence. He emerged behind Piastri and Gasly, ahead of Verstappen.

What was open was whether there was any reason to hurry. The data says no. Antonelli's mediums got faster as they aged: 94.1 – 94.3 – 94.2 – 93.9 on laps 18–21, on 21-lap-old tyres, and that last one was the fastest lap in the field at the time. Field degradation on the C2 medium was 0.018 seconds per lap, on the C1 hard 0.004 – effectively zero. Pirelli's post-race conclusion that the tyres did not limit race pace is literally true in the numbers.

While Russell was in the pit lane, Oliver Bearman crashed. Safety Car. Antonelli, who had not yet stopped, led the race, took his stop on lap 22 under the Safety Car and came out still P1, according to F1.com. Seven other cars did the same on the same lap – Hamilton, Gasly, Verstappen, Lawson, Sainz, Bortoleto and Albon – and Hülkenberg a lap later.

Pirelli described it afterwards without hedging: the Safety Car favoured those who had not tried the undercut, and above all Antonelli. Russell himself said he had worked his way back to P2 and was in the fight for the win, but made his stop one lap before the Safety Car, according to F1.com.

The simulator puts a number on it. Let Russell wait a single lap and stop under the Safety Car – he wins the race, 2.4 seconds quicker than his actual time, without ever being stuck in traffic. He led by 2.3 seconds on lap 20 with tyres that were not wearing; the only thing separating the Mercedes drivers was which side of lap 21 they were on.

But that is hindsight. With the information available on lap 21 – Piastri already on fresh hards, the window open, no idea Bearman was about to crash – the stop was rational. The outcome was bad. That is exactly the distinction we want to keep: the decision is judged on the information, not on the result.

The real losers on lap 21 were not Russell. They were the ones who had stopped earliest. Norris's lap-16 stop gave him five laps on fresh hards – and a place behind every winner of the Safety Car train. Had Norris waited and stopped under the Safety Car he would have finished P2 instead of P5. The same for Leclerc: P2 instead of P3. Even Piastri would have kept P2 with a late stop, though 6.6 seconds slower because he would have been running in traffic behind Russell until the neutralisation. The early stop was not a mistake on the information available – but it was the move with the least to gain and the most to lose when the rest of the field was content to wait.

Hamilton, who stopped under the Safety Car and got past Russell at the restart, then lost three places in 25 laps. His hard set was the only one at the front with clear degradation: 0.06 seconds per lap, against zero for Leclerc and Russell. P3 at the restart became P6 at the flag.

Arvid Lindblad had a problem with the front left and stopped on lap 18. Liam Lawson waited, took his stop under the Safety Car and finished P9 – he said himself afterwards that the Safety Car had helped him a lot, according to F1.com. The simulator confirms how much: had Lawson stopped "normally" on lap 19 it would have been P15. And had Lindblad been able to wait he would have finished P10, in the points, instead of P14. Same basic strategy, different lap, different result.

Before the race Pirelli said soft to hard was almost as quick as medium to hard, and that the soft gave better grip on the long run down to Turn 1. Yet nobody started on the C3, and after the Safety Car nobody used it for a late attack, something Pirelli specifically noted afterwards, according to F1.com. The reason is in the numbers: near-zero degradation, a hard that worked, a pit stop of almost 24 seconds and a circuit where you don't overtake. There is then no reason to buy a few tenths a lap for the price of an extra stop.

Judged on the information available when the decision was made, not on the result:

• Pirelli – C1/C2/C3 and the medium-to-hard one-stop forecast: very accurate.
• McLaren – saving both C1 sets for Sunday: a deliberate risk for flexibility, which they then did not need.
• Mercedes/Antonelli – extend the stint when the tyre costs nothing: right regardless, then the jackpot.
• Mercedes/Russell – stop on lap 21: reasonable, already beaten by Piastri's undercut, one lap wrong.
• McLaren/Piastri – stop on lap 18 from the lead: rational, cost three laps behind Verstappen but no position.
• Norris, Leclerc – the earliest stops: inside the window, but the move with the most to lose.
• Cadillac/Bottas – hard start: a logical alternative on a tyre that did not work for them.
• Racing Bulls/Lawson – wait: rewarded.

The decisive moment at Suzuka was not a stroke of genius. It was one lap. We will analyse the next race the same way: not "what should they have done with hindsight?", but "what information did they have when the decision had to be made?"

Sources: F1.com (preview, Pirelli's Friday and Saturday comments, race report, driver quotes), press.pirelli.com (tyre nomination and post-race analysis), FastF1 data for lap times, stint slopes and pit times. The simulator's pit loss is set to 23.8 s (F1: 23.75 s). Lap numbers refer to the lap on which the driver entered the pits.