The Suzuka Circuit places a significant level of stress on the tyres due to its medium and high speed corners, some of which are long, especially in the first sector. Ahead of this year’s running, the track has also been resurfaced from the end of sector three all the way through to the end of sector one which Pirelli predicted would increase this stress further as the speeds go up and the lap times come down.

As a result they’ve prescribed the hardest possible range – the C1 through C3 – but the data they’ve been able to gather on each of these has varied by team so far.

With four red flags affecting FP2, the most representative of the three practice hours, most teams and drivers lacked any longer running and where they did some in FP1, it can’t be as easily generalised to what could be seen on grand prix Sunday.

This means the teams, drivers and Pirelli have been left with some questions, with just one hour of practice remaining to answer them…

Is graining a problem?

The answer to this question appears to depend on who you ask.

In FP1 we saw a few drivers, including Lando Norris, complaining of graining on the front axle after just a few laps on the medium tyre. However, others like George Russell didn’t suffer the same problem.

Pirelli noted this themselves, “In general, apart from a few exceptions, we did not see any graining and it became clear that, on paper at least, all three compounds could have a role to play in the race,” according to their Chief Engineer, Simone Berra.

As a consequence of this lack of graining on most cars and a level of degradation that was “lower than expected”, Berra said Pirelli believe “that a one stop strategy may be more competitive than a two-stop, which theoretically was considered to be the quickest.” Even so, we could see this vary per driver or per team as it seems graining is being experienced to differing degrees by each driver/car, at least so far.

All of this evidence and the conclusions drawn may become obsolete in predicting strategy however if the rain that’s forecast for overnight from Saturday into Sunday comes to fruition, or if it rains during the grand prix itself.

How fast could the lap times get?

The new surface has already had the impact on lap time that was simulated by Pirelli using the teams’ data before the weekend.

The lap times were anticipated to drop by around a second and a half on last year’s by qualifying, which would put them into the 1:26s for the first time around Suzuka since it first hosted a grand prix in 1987. While we’re yet to see a step of this size, Oscar Piastri’s order topping time from FP2 of 1:28.114s was 0.083s quicker than the Pole time set by Max Verstappen last year.

With the new, smoother asphalt covering sector one’s medium-high speed corners, the fastest time in this sector alone set by Charles Leclerc in FP2 was already 0.154s down on that from qualifying last year.

If this is the step seen after less than two hours on track, we can perhaps expect even more as the track evolves and the teams push over the qualifying hour.

Will there be more tyre pressure changes?

As the times were expected to tumble, this coupled with the new smoother asphalt and the softer construction of the C2 and C3 tyres versus 2024, meant Pirelli made precautionary changes to the tyre pressures to ensure that the level of tyre wear was not excessive. The front axle was reduced by half psi from 25 to 24.5, while the rear was increased by the same amount to 23.5. Pirelli were keen to assess Friday’s data to ensure this was the correct decision, though no statement was made on this by the tyre supplier after FP1 or FP2.

If we see the lap times drop even further, Pirelli could issue a change to these pressures again to protect the tyres over longer stints in the grand prix as they did in Shanghai last time out.