F1 stars braced for Japanese Grand Prix weather chaos

Max Verstappen, Fernando Alonso, Lance Stroll, Japan, Rain, Social — Photo: © IMAGO

Japanese Grand Prix

F1 stars braced for Japanese Grand Prix weather chaos

First rainy weekend of the season?

Chris Deeley

Tuesday 24 March 2026 09:55 Updated: 10:33

Anyone up for a bit of F1 chaos?

While trying to predict the weather accurately nearly a week out is a mug's game, the early signs are there that the Japanese Grand Prix weekend might see intermediate or wet tyres bolted onto cars for the first time at a race this year.

The good news for Mercedes, who really want the least chaos possible, is that there's just a 3 per cent chance of rain listed for Friday and 0 per cent listed for Sunday.

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The bad news for them is that there's a 65 per cent chance of rain listed for Saturday afternoon. That could throw qualifying into chaos – especially if the track is getting wetter or drier as the session goes on, making track position and run timing crucial.

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Alpine director: Energy deployment will be harder in the rain

Alpine Racing Director Dave Greenwood has spoken about the potential for rain to hit the race weekend, saying: “We carried out our shakedown in the rain at Silverstone and did some wet running in Spain too.

"Harvesting energy will no longer be a problem in the wet, but deploying it becomes trickier, especially with less downforce. If we get rain, we just have to be prepared, like every team.

"Don’t underestimate the time between China and Japan, where we’ve been back at Enstone in the simulator recalibrating everything we’ve learned so far.”

This weekend's Japanese Grand Prix is the third race under the new F1 regulations, which came in over the off-season. Mercedes have locked out the front row at both races, with George Russell taking pole in Australia and Kimi Antonelli beating him out in Shanghai.

F1 Japanese Grand Prix