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The race began with just two corners of competitive running before a red flag stoppage. Daniel Ricciardo's RB collected Alex Albon's Williams as the two headed towards the esses in Sector 1. Ricciardo didn't seem aware of Albon's presence on his right, leaving no room for both cars to drive side-by-side, leading to a heavy crash into the tyre barriers. Thankfully, both drivers were unharmed.
While all frontrunning drivers started on Pirelli's medium or hard tyre, Fernando Alonso had an unused extra set of softs and continued to run the red-ringed rubber from P5 at the restart. The faster compound didn't see the Aston Martin driver gain on those ahead, but the gamble to try the softs didn't lose him any positions as he battled for points.
Alonso's P5 was the odd one out in the top positions, as McLaren and Ferrari fought for supremacy around the solitary top-10 Aston Martin. Lando Norris had maintained P3 at the restart ahead of Sainz, and Oscar Piastri was fending off Charles Leclerc for P6. The red vs orange fight would continue all race long, albeit not always at the same part of the track. McLaren pitted their duo early to cover off any Ferrari undercut, leading the Italians to run alternative strategies to get the upper hand.
Behind, Mercedes drivers George Russell and Lewis Hamilton didn't have the pace of their Ferrari or McLaren rivals in Japan, so the team also decided to try a different tact in the race. Switching from mediums to hards in the red flag, the Silver Arrows hoped to gain an advantage later in the race by having softer Pirellis. It caused pain for both in the early stages, though, to the extent that Hamilton let the sister Mercedes pass as he knew he was slowing Russell down.
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Of all the varying approaches to advance up the order, Leclerc's was the most ambitious. Ferrari went for a one-stop strategy, and the Monegasque driver had to nurse his medium Pirellis to Lap 26 as others around him ran fresher rubber. An error at the Degner 2 right-hander showed how little grip Leclerc had left, and with Norris rapidly reeling him in, Ferrari finally called him in to change tyres.
McLaren did the same to cover off Norris against Russell's contrary strategy, and a head-to-head pit-stop battle ensued. Each crew made rapid work to change the four tyres. The sport's fine margins were on show as Leclerc returned to the track marginally ahead of Russell's Mercedes while Norris, who entered the pits just metres behind, emerged behind. Though the fresher Pirellis allowed Norris to quickly overtake Russell, the lost time meant Leclerc could warm up his tyres without any need to defend.
While not as extreme as Leclerc, the sister Ferrari of Sainz was also eking out all the life of his mediums, briefly taking the race lead when the Red Bulls pitted. Unlike his teammate, Sainz fell behind Norris but had 10-lap fresher tyres to close in the six-second gap to the McLaren. Inching closer lap by lap, the Spaniard was soon on Norris' gearbox.
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Sainz's pressure and tyre advantage forced the Brit into a mistake at the final chicane. With Norris off line and Sainz using DRS down the pit straight, the Ferrari got through as the Italian's strategy paid off. An instruction for Leclerc to let his teammate pass solidified the Scuderia's 3-4 result, while McLaren must assess how Norris' P3 start turned into a P5 finish.
The pain wasn't over for McLaren, either, with Oscar Piastri stuck behind Alonso and Mercedes' alternate strategy finally starting to pay off. Excellent defensive driving from Alonso left the Australian unable to overtake the Aston Martin and instead had to watch for Russell behind. A late dummy from Russell had the two almost collide at the chicane before Piastri took to the run-off, but it was a sign of things to come. A Piastri lock-up on the penultimate lap opened the door for Russell to pass in a repeat of what Sainz did to Norris, and Mercedes finally had something to cheer on an otherwise disappointing day at the office.
An absorbing strategic race in the midfield left Red Bull's third 1-2 finish of the season seeming like a secondary act. The reigning champions showed that their Australian loss wasn't the beginning of the end, and they remain the ones to beat as F1 heads to China in two weeks' time.
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