F1 Japanese Grand Prix: 6 big questions facing the grid

Formula 1 returns to action for this weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix.

And for fans you best enjoy this race, as the next time you will see the grid in action will be the Miami Grand Prix at the start of May.

To help you get ready for the Japanese Grand Prix, here are six huge questions facing the teams, and the sport, as the grid heads to the historic Suzuka International Racing Course.

What comes next at Aston Martin?

To say it has been a difficult start to the 2026 F1 season for Aston Martin would be an understatement.

Dating back to pre-season testing, the team has struggled with the AMR26. Specifically, severe vibrations from the Honda power unit have led to components literally falling off the car, battery failures, and both Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll fearing permanent nerve damage if they drive an entire race distance. While the team has made some strides in solving these problems, they have yet to finish a Grand Prix, using both the Australian Grand Prix and the Chinese Grand Prix as modified testing sessions.

Then came last week, with reports emerging that the team is looking to add a new team principal. That would allow managing technical director Adrian Newey, who took on the team principal role as well last November, to focus on the technical side of the operation. A rumored target for the role? Jonathan Wheatley, who stepped down from his role as Audi’s team principal late last week, citing “personal reasons.”

Will Wheatley — who worked with Newey at Red Bull — take on that role this week at Aston Martin? Or sometime in the near future? Can Newey and the team’s Honda partners solve the AMR26 riddle in time to salvage this week, or this season?

Just where does Aston Martin go from here?

Can McLaren get off the mat?

Last year McLaren secured the team’s second consecutive Constructors’ Championship, and drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri battled over the course of the season for the Drivers’ title, with Norris winning that scrap at the season’s final race.

This year, Piastri has yet to even start a Grand Prix, and Norris also failed to start the Chinese Grand Prix.

Piastri crashed on the reconnaissance lap ahead of the season-opening Australian Grand Prix, his home race. Then at the Chinese Grand Prix the team found electrical faults on both cars leading up to the race, forcing the team to keep both cars on the sidelines.

“We move forward as one team, both trackside and in Woking, with our partners at HPP. We’ll learn from today together and make sure it doesn’t happen again before coming back stronger for the next race in Japan,” said team principal Andrea Stella.

Japan has arrived. How will McLaren bounce back?

The midfield fight

Every season, the midfield fight offers some of the best drama on the grid.

This year looks to be no exception.

At the moment, Haas sits fourth in the Constructors’ Championship with 17 points, all of which have come from young Oliver Bearman. The British driver followed up his seventh-place finish at the Australian Grand Prix with a P5 at the Chinese Grand Prix, and along with his P8 in the F1 Sprint race in Shanghai he has singlehandedly put Haas into fourth.

The team is also using an incredible new logo this week, featuring none other than Godzilla.

Red Bull currently sit fifth, but few expect Max Verstappen and company to be in that spot for long.

Then you see Visa Cash App Racing Bulls in sixth, with Liam Lawson’s strong performance in Shanghai coming after rookie Arvid Lindblad banked four points for the team with an eighth-place finish in Australia. VCARB is also changing things up this week with a stunning one-off livery paying tribute to the Japanese car culture.

In seventh? Perhaps the biggest surprise team of the season in Alpine. The team shifted their focus to 2026 early in the 2025 season, hoping to capitalize on the new regulation set as well as a move to Mercedes power units. That seems to have paid early dividends, as Pierre Gasly has a pair of points finishes and Franco Colapinto secured his first points since the 2024 United States Grand Prix with a P10 in China.

It is certainly early days, but the midfield fight is as fascinating as ever.

Can Ferrari catch Mercedes?

Every competitive session this season has ended with a Mercedes in P1.

George Russell took pole position for the Australian Grand Prix, and followed that with a win in the first race of the season. Russell also took pole for the F1 Sprint race at the Chinese Grand Prix and secured a win in that race as well.

Then it was over to young Kimi Antonelli, who became the youngest pole-sitter in F1 history when he took pole for the Chinese Grand Prix, and then secured a win in that race to complete a s trong weekend for himself, and the team.

And with Mercedes locking out the front row in both the Australian Grand Prix and the Chinese Grand Prix, the Silver Arrows currently hold the lead in the Constructors’ Championship standings with 98 points.

That start was not exactly unexpected, as the worst-kept secret in the paddock last season held that Mercedes would start on the front foot when the new regulations arrived. But what might be a bit of a surprise is that the gap from Mercedes to Ferrari in P2 is not as big as we on the outside expected. Charles Leclerc took third in the Australian Grand Prix, and Lewis Hamilton secured his first Ferrari Grand Prix podium with a P3 in the Chinese Grand Prix, coming after he finished third behind Russell and Leclerc in the F1 Sprint race a day earlier.

Hamilton in particular sounded rather upbeat following the weekend in Shanghai.

“It was one of the most enjoyable races I’ve had in a long, long time, if ever, the fact that the cars are the way they are this year,” said Hamilton. “And that battle with Charles at the end was awesome – great wheel-to-wheel battle, very fair and just what we want.

“I think there was one moment where we did touch but it was subtle, just a kiss, so it’s okay. But this is what it’s about – it’s about tough racing, and I’ve got to say a huge thank you to everyone at Ferrari, everyone back at Maranello for getting us into this position.

“I know it’s not exactly where we want to be – we want to be up front where these guys [Mercedes] are, but we’ve got a great platform to work off and we’ve just got to [go] literally full gas.”

Hamilton’s podium in Shanghai kicked off a round of stories with the same theme: The seven-time Drivers’ Champion is “not done” with F1. But the bigger story might be where Ferrari is right now, and whether they can close the gap to Mercedes over the course of the season, a fight that is renewed this week at historic Suzuka.

What to expect from Red Bull?

Tough starts for teams such as Williams and Aston Martin have perhaps overshadowed what we have seen from Red Bull to date.

But to put that start into perspective Max Verstappen, the four-time Drivers’ Champion, currently sits eighth in the Drivers’ Championship standings with eight points, one spot and point behind former teammate Pierre Gasly. After finishing sixth in Melbourne, Verstappen retired from the Chinese Grand Prix after the RB22 suffered a failure.

“It’s been a very challenging weekend for us overall,” said Verstappen after the Chinese Grand Prix. “We unfortunately had to retire today in the race due to an ERS cooling issue, which is not what we like to see. We faced the same problems that we had in Melbourne: we had a lot of degradation and were still struggling with the pace and the grip. We tried a different procedure to help with the start, had a similar issue and lost quite a few positions at the beginning, ending up at the back of the grid.

“There are quite a few things we need to go away and analyse and learn from in order to improve our overall performance of the car. It is not where we want to be and something we will be looking at in detail ahead of Japan. The team are very talented and working on doing everything they can and I have a lot of confidence in them but at the moment we aren’t where we want to be. We do have a bit of time after this race to work on the car so hopefully we can work on improvements.”

While Isack Hadjar secured his first points for the team with a P8 in Shanghai, Red Bull heads to Japan sitting in an unfamiliar spot, as they are currently fifth in the Constructors’ Championship. And while some bumps might have been expected, given the team’s transition to an in-house power unit in partnership with Ford, the expectations at Red Bull — particularly with Verstappen in the fold — are to be fighting at the front.

The team hopes to be doing that starting this week in Japan.

“The Chinese Grand Prix proved to be a very tough event for us from Friday onwards. Being on the back foot at the start of a Sprint weekend is the worst possible scenario as there is really little time to catch up and get on top of any difficulties,” said team principal Laurent Mekies following the Chinese Grand Prix.

“We knew that just getting onto the grid in Melbourne with our own PU was a major achievement in itself and it would have been naïve not to expect we would encounter reliability issues. Today, we had to retire Max because of a coolant fault. However, this was not our only issue as overall, performance wise, our package showed some significant shortcomings.

“However, we have learned so much over the past few weeks and I expect that we can be more competitive from the next round in Japan in a fortnight’s time. After that, the unfortunate but inevitable cancellation of the races in April will give all of us a chance to catch our breath and work as hard as always in Milton Keynes.”

Let’s see how Red Bull responds this week, starting with some rumored upgrades to the RB22.

How will teams use the break?

We close by looking ahead, thanks to that final point from Mekies.

F1 made the decision to cancel the next two races, the Bahrain Grand Prix and the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, due. to the ongoing hostilities in the Middle East.

That means that following the Japanese Grand Prix this weekend, the grid will go silent until the Miami Grand Prix, at the start of May.

An extended break coming early in the season — a season that saw F1 institute the biggest regulations changes in the history of the sport — gives each team on the grid a chance to reset, and improve.

What team, or teams, make the most of the unexpected break?

How that question gets answered could tell the story of the entire 2026 season, if not beyond.