What F1 teams do well at the Japanese Grand Prix with McLaren, Ferrari and Red Bull successful at Suzuka

Follow us on Google Discover

The Japanese Grand Prix has been a mainstay on the Formula 1 calendar since 1976, so F1 Oversteer has looked at what teams have been the most successful at the race.

Both Suzuka and the Fuji Speedway have played host to the Japanese GP in its history, but the bulk of the races have taken place at the former.

Suzuka is a highly technical circuit that features a mix of high-speed corners that flow into each other, with walls that are close to the track edge. It is also the only figure-of-eight circuit on the F1 calendar, with drivers passing through a tunnel after the two Degners.

Michael Schumacher is the most successful driver at the Japanese GP, having won the race six times. However, while the German enjoyed vast success at Suzuka with Ferrari, the Scuderia are not the most successful constructor in the history of the Japanese GP.

McLaren are the most successful constructor at the F1 Japanese Grand Prix

The most successful constructor at the Japanese Grand Prix are McLaren, with the team winning the race nine times to date. Their first victory in Japan came in 1977 with James Hunt at Fuji after the Briton jumped polesitter Mario Andretti at the start.

McLaren’s next win in Japan came at Suzuka in 1988 when Ayrton Senna clinched the win and, with it, his first title for McLaren in their dominant MP4-4, which won nearly every race that season.

Suzuka has been the scene of a lot of F1 drivers’ championship deciders over the years, with the 1999 race being the scene where Mika Hakkinen clinched his second title driving for McLaren. Yet the British team last won the Japanese GP in 2011 with Jenson Button.

Red Bull have been the team to beat around Suzuka in more recent editions of the Japanese GP, and are fast approaching McLaren’s record as the most successful team in the race’s history.

Max Verstappen even won the Japanese GP for Red Bull in 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025 while the team were using engines produced by Honda – the owners of Suzuka.

Mercedes are the most successful F1 power unit manufacturer at the Japanese Grand Prix

Mercedes hold the record for the most wins by a power unit manufacturer in the history of the Japanese GP with 11 wins to date, after overtaking Renault’s previous record of 10 victories in 2019.

McLaren scored five of their victories in the Japanese GP with Mercedes engines, before the Silver Arrows took command themselves with six consecutive wins following the introduction of 1.6L V6 turbo-hybrid power units in 2014.

While Ferrari scored all seven of their Japanese GP wins to date with their own engines, no other team has yet won in the Land of the Rising Sun with a power unit produced in Maranello.

In contrast, Honda engines have only ever powered customer teams to glory in the Japanese GP through McLaren (1988, 1991) and Red Bull (2023, 2024, 2025). Red Bull’s engines were badged as Honda RBPT units during that run, but they were still built in Japan.