Japanese Grand Prix Winners: Every Race Result Since 1976

Kimi Antonelli won the most recent Japanese Grand Prix, on 29 March 2026, driving for Mercedes and starting from pole position. It was his second victory in a row, and it made him, at 19, the youngest driver ever to lead the F1® world championship. He has since gone on the win the 2026 championship.

The race has been run 40 times since 1976, across two circuits, Fuji Speedway and Suzuka, and few places have settled more championships. Thirteen titles have been decided in Japan, from James Hunt in the rain at Fuji in 1976 to Max Verstappen at Suzuka in 2022. In between sit some of the sport’s most argued-over moments, from Senna and Prost to Kimi Räikkönen’s charge from 17th on the grid. Add typhoons, rain and a home crowd that has filled Suzuka for nearly four decades, and you have one of the great fixtures on the calendar.

The next one is already in the diary. The 2027 race returns to Suzuka on 9 to 11 April, and Keith Prowse Travel’s Japanese Grand Prix packages are on a waitlist now.

Japanese Grand Prix Winners at a Glance

• 40 Formula 1® world championship races held in Japan: 1976 and 1977 at Fuji Speedway, 1987 to 2006 at Suzuka, 2007 and 2008 back at Fuji, and 2009 onwards at Suzuka. There was no race in 2020 or 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Most wins by a driver: Michael Schumacher, with 6. Most wins by a constructor: McLaren, with 9.
• First Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka: 1987, won by Gerhard Berger for Ferrari.
• Most recent winner: Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes, 2026, from pole position.
• Title deciders: 13 world championships have been decided at the Japanese Grand Prix, the most recent being Max Verstappen’s second in 2022.
• Longest winning streak: Max Verstappen, four in a row from 2022 to 2025.
• Lowest winning grid position: Kimi Räikkönen, from 17th in 2005.
• Most pole positions at Suzuka: Michael Schumacher, with 8. The winner has started from pole in 8 of the last 12 editions.

F1 Japanese Grand Prix Results by Year

Every Japanese Grand Prix result from 2026 back to 1976, most recent first. The final column does something a results card cannot: it marks the races that decided the world championship and names the driver who was crowned. Race times are left out, because the grid position tells the better story of how each win came about.

Year	Circuit	Winner	Team	Grid	Title decided here?
2026	Suzuka	Kimi Antonelli	Mercedes	1	No
2025	Suzuka	Max Verstappen	Red Bull-Honda RBPT	1	No
2024	Suzuka	Max Verstappen	Red Bull-Honda RBPT	1	No
2023	Suzuka	Max Verstappen	Red Bull-Honda RBPT	1	No
2022	Suzuka	Max Verstappen	Red Bull-RBPT	1	Yes (Verstappen)
2019	Suzuka	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	3	No
2018	Suzuka	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1	No
2017	Suzuka	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1	No
2016	Suzuka	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1	No
2015	Suzuka	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	2	No
2014	Suzuka	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	2	No
2013	Suzuka	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull-Renault	2	No
2012	Suzuka	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull-Renault	1	No
2011	Suzuka	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	2	Yes (Vettel)
2010	Suzuka	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull-Renault	1	No
2009	Suzuka	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull-Renault	1	No
2008	Fuji	Fernando Alonso	Renault	4	No
2007	Fuji	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	1	No
2006	Suzuka	Fernando Alonso	Renault	5	No
2005	Suzuka	Kimi Räikkönen	McLaren-Mercedes	17	No
2004	Suzuka	Michael Schumacher	Ferrari	1	No
2003	Suzuka	Rubens Barrichello	Ferrari	1	Yes (Schumacher)
2002	Suzuka	Michael Schumacher	Ferrari	1	No
2001	Suzuka	Michael Schumacher	Ferrari	1	No
2000	Suzuka	Michael Schumacher	Ferrari	1	Yes (Schumacher)
1999	Suzuka	Mika Häkkinen	McLaren-Mercedes	2	Yes (Häkkinen)
1998	Suzuka	Mika Häkkinen	McLaren-Mercedes	2	Yes (Häkkinen)
1997	Suzuka	Michael Schumacher	Ferrari	2	No
1996	Suzuka	Damon Hill	Williams-Renault	2	Yes (Hill)
1995	Suzuka	Michael Schumacher	Benetton-Renault	1	No
1994	Suzuka	Damon Hill	Williams-Renault	1	No
1993	Suzuka	Ayrton Senna	McLaren-Ford	2	No
1992	Suzuka	Riccardo Patrese	Williams-Renault	2	No
1991	Suzuka	Gerhard Berger	McLaren-Honda	1	Yes (Senna)
1990	Suzuka	Nelson Piquet	Benetton-Ford	6	Yes (Senna)
1989	Suzuka	Alessandro Nannini	Benetton-Ford	6	Yes (Prost)
1988	Suzuka	Ayrton Senna	McLaren-Honda	1	Yes (Senna)
1987	Suzuka	Gerhard Berger	Ferrari	1	Yes (Piquet)
1977	Fuji	James Hunt	McLaren-Ford	2	No
1976	Fuji	Mario Andretti	Lotus-Ford	1	Yes (Hunt)

No race was held in 2020 or 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Formula 1® also did not visit Japan between 1978 and 1986.

The Fuji Years: 1976 and 1977

1976 Japanese Grand Prix

Formula 1® reached Japan for the first time on 24 October 1976, and the championship went down to the last race. Niki Lauda led James Hunt by three points, only months after his near-fatal crash at the Nürburgring. Fuji Speedway lay under torrential rain and fog, several Japanese drivers were making their home debuts, and after two laps Lauda pulled into the pits and withdrew, judging conditions too dangerous.

Hunt led, faded as the track dried, dropped to fifth with tyre trouble and then fought back to finish third. He needed fourth. He crossed the line believing he had lost, and learned afterwards that he was champion by a single point. Mario Andretti won for Lotus from pole position, and Australia’s Alan Jones was fourth in a Surtees. The story was retold in the 2013 film Rush.

1977 Japanese Grand Prix

Hunt returned a year later and won for McLaren from second on the grid, after Andretti was taken out on the opening laps. It was Hunt’s tenth and final Grand Prix victory. Then Formula 1® left Japan for a decade. The Japanese Grand Prix itself is older than its place on the world championship calendar: the first was run in 1963, at Suzuka, as a sports car race.

Senna, Prost and the Suzuka Title Deciders: 1987 to 1991

In 1987 Formula 1® came back to Japan at Suzuka, a circuit that began life as a Honda test track and had never hosted a championship race. Gerhard Berger won for Ferrari, the team’s first victory in 38 races. Nelson Piquet was champion before the weekend was over, because Nigel Mansell, his only remaining rival, crashed heavily in qualifying and could not race.

1988 Japanese Grand Prix

Ayrton Senna stalled on pole position, fell well down the order and then drove his way back to the front. He won to take his first world title, and it was his eighth victory of the season, a record at the time. It was the first of three Senna titles that were settled at Suzuka.

1989 Japanese Grand Prix

The McLaren team-mates collided at the Casio Triangle with Senna needing to win to keep the title alive. He rejoined through the escape road, pitted for a new nose and charged back to take the lead from Alessandro Nannini. Senna crossed the line first but was disqualified for missing the chicane. Nannini took the only victory of his career, and Alain Prost was champion for the third time.

1990 Japanese Grand Prix

The rematch lasted less than ten seconds. Senna started on pole with Prost alongside, and at Turn 1 on the opening lap the two collided again, this time deciding the title for Senna. Nelson Piquet then led a Benetton one-two, and Aguri Suzuki finished third, the first Japanese driver on a Formula 1® podium.

1991 Japanese Grand Prix

Senna clinched his third title when Mansell retired from the race. Berger won from pole position by 0.344 seconds, with Senna, by then champion, second. Three titles in four years had gone Senna’s way, and all three were settled in the same corner of Mie Prefecture.

From Hill to Schumacher: 1992 to 2004

Riccardo Patrese won in 1992 from second on the grid, the last of his six Grand Prix victories, and Senna took his final Japanese win in 1993. In 1994 it was Damon Hill’s turn, in the wet, in a race stopped by a red flag and decided on aggregate, which left him a point behind Michael Schumacher with one round to run. In 1996 Hill won again, and the title with it, after Jacques Villeneuve retired.

Then came Mika Häkkinen. In 1998 Schumacher stalled on the grid and had to start from the back, and Häkkinen won to take the title. He won again in 1999 and clinched the championship a second time at Suzuka.

Schumacher’s record run is the story of this era: 1995 for Benetton, then 1997, 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2004 for Ferrari. In 1997 he won from second on the grid in a race overshadowed by the exclusion of his title rival Villeneuve, who raced under appeal. The 2000 win gave Ferrari its first drivers’ title in 21 years, and it began a run of three in a row, a streak only Max Verstappen has beaten at this race. In 2003 it was Rubens Barrichello who won, on the day Schumacher finished eighth and clinched a record sixth championship.

2005 and 2006: Two of Suzuka's Greatest Races

2005 Japanese Grand Prix

Single-lap qualifying in the rain scattered the grid, leaving Michael Schumacher 14th, Fernando Alonso 16th and Kimi Räikkönen 17th. Räikkönen won from the back, sweeping around the outside of Giancarlo Fisichella for the lead on the final lap, and no one has won a Japanese Grand Prix from lower on the grid. Earlier, on lap 20, Alonso had passed Schumacher around the outside of 130R, one of the boldest overtakes the sport has seen. He did not even need the points, having clinched the title in Brazil the round before. Fans often place that move in 2006. It was 2005.

2006 Japanese Grand Prix

A year later Alonso won for Renault, and this time the drama belonged to Schumacher, whose Ferrari’s engine failed while he was leading. The two had arrived at Suzuka level on points, and Alonso left with a ten-point lead and the title within reach in Brazil.

The weekend had a sense of an ending about it, because the 2006 race was widely expected to be Suzuka’s last Japanese Grand Prix, with the event due to move to Fuji from 2007. A crowd of 361,000 came through the gates, a record for the circuit that still stands.

Back to Fuji, Then Red Bull: 2007 to 2013

Formula 1® went back to Fuji for 2007 and 2008, and the weather came with it. Lewis Hamilton won the 2007 race in heavy rain and mist, with the first 19 laps run behind the safety car. Alonso followed with a second Japanese win in 2008, from fourth on the grid. The plan was for Fuji and Suzuka to alternate, but in July 2009 Toyota-owned Fuji said it could no longer afford to host the race from 2010, and Suzuka has been home to the Japanese Grand Prix ever since.

Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull then made Suzuka their own, winning in 2009, 2010, 2012 and 2013, from pole position in the first three and from second on the grid in the fourth. Mark Webber was second behind Vettel in 2010 and again in 2013, giving Red Bull a one-two both times. The one interruption came in 2011, when Jenson Button won for McLaren wearing a helmet that paid tribute to the victims of the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. Vettel finished third that day, which was enough to make him champion.

In 2012 Kamui Kobayashi finished third for Sauber, the first Japanese driver on the podium at home since Aguri Suzuki in 1990.

The Mercedes Era: 2014 to 2019

2014 Japanese Grand Prix

Typhoon Phanfone hung over the weekend. The race began in heavy rain behind the safety car and was stopped early, with Lewis Hamilton declared the winner. Hamilton had started from second and was leading when the race was stopped. The day is remembered above all for Jules Bianchi, who was seriously injured in an accident at the Dunlop Curve and died in 2015. The accident led to safety changes across the sport, including the introduction of the Virtual Safety Car.

Hamilton won again in 2015, 2017 and 2018, and Nico Rosberg took the 2016 race in the year he became champion. Mercedes won every Japanese Grand Prix from 2014 to 2019, six races in a row, with Hamilton’s wins in 2017 and 2018 both coming from pole position. Max Verstappen was already making his mark, finishing second to Rosberg in 2016 and to Hamilton in 2017. In 2019 a typhoon cancelled Saturday’s running and qualifying was held on Sunday morning. Sebastian Vettel took pole, but Valtteri Bottas got the better of the start from third on the grid and led almost all the way, with Vettel second and Hamilton third. The result sealed Mercedes’ sixth straight constructors’ championship.

Verstappen's Run and a New Era: 2022 to 2026

Japan did not host a race in 2020 or 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. When it returned in 2022, so did the rain.

Max Verstappen won a rain-shortened race from pole position, with 28 of the scheduled 53 laps completed after a red flag of more than two hours. Charles Leclerc’s five-second penalty for cutting the final chicane dropped him to third, behind Sergio Perez, and confusion followed over how many points were on offer. The FIA confirmed that reduced points apply only to races that cannot be restarted, so Verstappen received full points and was confirmed world champion.

He won again in 2023, 2024 and 2025, four Japanese Grands Prix in a row, the longest run in the race’s history.

In 2026 Kimi Antonelli won for Mercedes from pole, ahead of Oscar Piastri, Charles Leclerc, George Russell and Lando Norris. It was the first Japanese Grand Prix under the 2026 regulations, and the first to be run in March. Wheelspin dropped Antonelli to sixth at the start, and a safety car after Oliver Bearman’s crash at Spoon reshaped the race, but he was 13.722 seconds clear at the flag.

The next chapter arrives on 9 to 11 April 2027, back at Suzuka. See the waitlisted Japanese Grand Prix packages to be first in line.

Japanese Grand Prix Records

A handful of numbers say a lot about this race.

Driver	Japanese Grand Prix wins
Michael Schumacher	6
Lewis Hamilton	5
Sebastian Vettel	4
Max Verstappen	4
Gerhard Berger, Ayrton Senna, Damon Hill, Mika Häkkinen, Fernando Alonso	2 each

Constructor	Wins (championship races only)
McLaren	9
Red Bull	8
Ferrari	7
Mercedes	7
Benetton	3
Williams	3
Renault	2
Lotus	1

Engine manufacturer	Wins
Mercedes	12
Renault	10
Ferrari	7

McLaren’s nine wins stretch from Hunt in 1977 to Button in 2011, while all eight of Red Bull’s came at Suzuka. Ferrari’s seven came with Berger in 1987 and then Schumacher and Barrichello between 1997 and 2004. Mercedes’ engine tally covers its own seven wins plus the McLaren-Mercedes victories of 1998, 1999, 2005, 2007 and 2011.

Schumacher also holds the pole position record at Suzuka, with 8, and the podium record, with 9. Saturday matters here: the winner has started from pole in 8 of the last 12 editions. Verstappen owns the longest winning streak, with four from 2022 to 2025. Schumacher won three in a row from 2000 to 2002.

Lewis Hamilton at the Japanese Grand Prix

After Schumacher, Hamilton is the name most closely tied to this race. Lewis Hamilton has won the Japanese Grand Prix five times, more than anyone except Schumacher: in 2007 at Fuji, in the rain, then at Suzuka in 2014, 2015, 2017 and 2018. In 2026 he returned in a Ferrari and finished sixth, a long way from the winner’s circle he knew so well in a Mercedes.

Home Heroes and the Australian Record

Japan has produced two home podiums in Formula 1® history: Aguri Suzuki’s third place in 1990, the first for a Japanese driver, and Kamui Kobayashi’s third in 2012. They remain the only two. The appetite for a third is obvious. When Yuki Tsunoda arrived at Red Bull in 2025, the circuit’s organisers wondered whether his presence explained unusually busy Friday practice crowds.

Australia has a story of its own here. No Australian has won the Japanese Grand Prix. Mark Webber finished second in 2010 and 2013, and Daniel Ricciardo was third in 2017. The nearest miss of all came in the very first race, when Alan Jones was fourth at Fuji in 1976. Oscar Piastri has been on the podium three times: third in 2023 and 2025, and second in 2026. With Piastri leading the opening laps of last year’s race, a first Australian win is well within reach in 2027, and it gives Australian fans a natural reason to be in the stands.

Why Suzuka Crowds Matter

Demand has always been part of this race’s story. For the 1990 race, three million people applied for tickets. Crowds topped 300,000 through much of the 1990s and early 2000s, and weekend attendance peaked at 361,000 in 2006. It climbed from 229,000 in 2024 to 266,000 in 2025 and reached about 315,000 in 2026, the biggest crowd at Suzuka in two decades, with about 130,000 there on race day in a city of around 180,000 people.

Numbers like those leave little spare room. The practical takeaway is simple. Grandstand seats and nearby hotels go early, which is why many international fans book a package as soon as one is available.

Be There for the 2027 Japanese Grand Prix

Keith Prowse Travel’s Japanese Grand Prix packages combine three-day grandstand or hospitality tickets at Suzuka with hotels in Nagoya, or in Tokyo and Nagoya, daily breakfast, return race-day transfers and on-ground support from our team. Tickets cover Friday to Sunday, and each package opens with a welcome function. The 2027 race runs from 9 to 11 April. The packages are not yet on sale, and joining the waitlist is the way to be first in line.

Be first in line for 2027 Japanese Grand Prix packages with Keith Prowse Travel