R3 – Tyre Selection

The Suzuka track is one of the most spectacular and demanding on the calendar, as well as being the only circuit of the season with a figure of eight layout.
Located in the Mie Prefecture, the venue is owned by Honda whose Suzuka factory, built in 1960 is one of its main sites in Japan.

The track is regarded as being demanding for both car and driver, 5.807 kilometres in length, it is made up of 18 corners, some of which are part of motor racing history, such as the Esses in the first sector.

The C1, the hard compound of the 2025 range, makes its season debut at this the third round, joined as usual by the C2 (Medium) and C3 (Soft).
That’s because Suzuka is one of the toughest tracks on the calendar when it comes to tyres and Pirelli has therefore always selected the hardest trio of compounds.

Something new for this year is the fact that a large part of the track has been resurfaced, from the exit of the last chicane to the end of the first sector.
This is an important section, as it features medium and high speed corners, some of them long ones, such as the first two after the start-finish straight, where tyres come under a lot of stress.

As already mentioned, the three hardest compounds in the range will be available. It is worth noting that, of the three, the C1 is the one that most closely resembles its 2024 iteration, while the C2 especially and the C3, have undergone the most changes in terms of performance, being softer than last year.

In 2024, the race was won by Max Verstappen, followed home by Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez and the then Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz.
The field was split pretty fairly evenly between the Medium and Soft for the first stint, with 12 choosing the C2 and eight the C3.

But the race strategy was then influenced by the race being red flagged following a collision between Albon and Ricciardo, with seven drivers changing compounds for the restart off the grid.