Andrea Kimi Antonelli achieved his second career pole position in Formula 1 by beating his Mercedes teammate George Russell at Suzuka, the scene of the Japanese Grand Prix.
Antonelli asserted his dominance on his Mercedes colleague George Russell so far this weekend, with youngster quicker than his elder in the last two free practice sessions as well as Q2 – by six tenths – and Q3 – by three.
The racing order was mostly unsurprising in Q1. Ferrari and Mercedes led McLaren at the front, while the Williams, Cadillac and Aston Martin cars are in the drop zone – like they did in both qualifying sessions in China – with five minutes remaining.
Late improvements by Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon allowed the former to jump to P15, with Oliver Bearman out in Q1 with a shocking P18 – the Haas driver currently stands in a remarkable fifth place in the drivers’ championship, but adding to his points tally will be a difficult this time around.
The troubled Aston Martin team ended up last and will line up in P21 and P22 on struggling Honda’s track, some three seconds off the pace…
Oscar Piastri then set the early pace in Q2, leading the Mercedes by three tenths, before Charles Leclerc, then Antonelli went even faster.
Gabriel Bortoleto and Pierre Gasly established themselves as the two midfield cars in the top ten from Audi teammate, Nico Hulkenberg.
The Red Bulls, however, were on the limit of elimination. A late effort by Arvid Lindblad earned him P10 for Racing Bulls, kicking Verstappen out of Q3.
“I think there is something wrong with the car mate, it’s completely undriveable suddenly in this qualifying”, Verstappen told his race engineer on the radio. “Jumping on high speed in the rear suddenly.”
This was a disappointing qualifying for the four-time champion, who is the most successful driver at Suzuka. It will be a challenging race for the Verstappen due to the tricky RB22.
The first Q3 run saw Antonelli set the first one minute, 28 seconds lap of the weekend, with one minute, 28.778 seconds, with teammate Russell three tenths down with one minute, 29.076 seconds despite similar times in the opening sector of the lap.
McLaren outperformed Ferrari with Oscar Piastri three tenths ahead of Lando Norris and Leclerc, as Lewis Hamilton ended up one further tenth. The remaining Red Bull of Isack Hadjar was exactly 1.2 seconds off the pace.
Neither Mercedes driver improved on their times in the second Q3 run, despite Antonelli setting the fastest final sector overall. Ditto for the McLarens and Ferraris, in fact, so the order of the top six remained unchanged.
Gasly, however improved to take seventh position away from Hadjar, with the Alpine under one second away from pole position.
Bortoleto and Lindblad will make up the fifth row of the grid.
So congratulations to Kimi Antonelli with yet another pole position. He achieved his first at China in the previous race and Kimi looks strong compared to George. The Japanese Grand Prix is going to be fascinating.
Japanese Grand Prix, qualifying positions:
1 Kimi Antonelli Mercedes 1:28.778
2 George Russell Mercedes 1:29.076
3 Oscar Piastri McLaren-Mercedes 1:29.132
4 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 1:29.405
5 Lando Norris McLaren-Mercedes 1:29.409
6 Lewis Hamilton Ferrari 1:29.567
7 Pierre Gasly Alpine-Mercedes 1:29.691
8 Isack Hadjar Red Bull-Ford 1:29.978
9 Gabriel Bortoleto Audi 1:30.274
10 Arvid Lindblad Racing Bulls-Ford 1:30.319
11 Max Verstappen Red Bull-Ford 1:30.262
12 Esteban Ocon Haas-Ferrari 1:30.309
13 Nico Hulkenberg Audi 1:30.387
14 Liam Lawson Racing Bulls-Ford 1:30.495
15 Franco Colapinto Alpine-Mercedes 1:30.627
16 Carlos Sainz Williams-Mercedes 1:31.033
17 Alexander Albon Williams-Mercedes 1:31.088
18 Oliver Bearman Haas-Ferrari 1:31.090
19 Sergio Perez Cadillac-Ferrari 1:32.206
20 Valtteri Bottas Cadillac-Ferrari 1:32.330
21 Fernando Alonso Aston Martin-Honda 1:32.646
22 Lance Stroll Aston Martin-Honda 1:32.920
Kimi Antonelli has stormed to pole position at the Japanese Grand Prix, the Italian following up on his maiden pole last time out in China to put himself at the front of the grid ahead of Mercedes team mate George Russell.
After looking on the pace throughout Qualifying, Antonelli continued that form by securing provisional pole on his first run in Q3 – and while he failed to improve on his final lap, the youngster had done enough to secure P1 on the grid with his time of 1m 28.778s.
Russell could not match the other Silver Arrows car and had to settle for P2, ending the session 0.298s adrift, while Oscar Piastri proved to be the pair’s closest competitor in third for McLaren. Charles Leclerc had also looked on for a strong lap but suffered a snap of oversteer on his last effort, leaving the Ferrari racer in fourth.
Lando Norris placed in fifth for McLaren, ahead of the other Ferrari of Lewis Hamilton, while Alpine’s Pierre Gasly, Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar, Audi’s Gabriel Bortoleto and Racing Bulls rookie Arvid Lindblad completed the top 10.
The big story from Q2 was the exit of Max Verstappen, the Red Bull driver’s run of consecutive pole positions across the last four years at Suzuka coming to an end as he found himself eliminated in P11, having reported that his car was “completely undriveable”.
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/antonelli-clinches-pole-position-for-japanese-grand-prix-ahead-of-russell.6YuzhITkzjh8sZebFf5eLs
Max Verstappen admits that trying to tame his Red Bull car in Qualifying for the Japanese Grand Prix “was again very difficult”, having been eliminated in Q2.
The Dutchman has dominated at the Suzuka Circuit in recent years, taking pole position and the Grand Prix victory at the last four editions of the race.
But the four-time World Champion will start only P11 for Sunday’s 53-lap race having failed to reach the final segment of Qualifying, missing out by nearly two-tenths to Racing Bulls rookie, Arvid Lindblad.
Verstappen was also beaten by Red Bull team mate Isack Hadjar and found himself 1.2s behind the best time set by Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli.
It continues a difficult start to the season for Verstappen, having failed to score points in either the China Sprint or Chinese Grand Prix last time out, which included retiring in the latter due to a technical issue.
The four-time World Champion has also only qalified as high as eighth this season, which came in China, with a best result of sixth in the season opener.
“Yeah not good,” said Verstappen in the media pen afterwards. “We thought we fixed a little bit in FP3 but then going into Qualifying it was again very difficult.
“Just sliding a lot but also at the same time not having the rotation mid-corner everywhere, so that makes it quite a complicated balance. It’s not ideal around here.”
Verstappen was asked whether trying lots of different setups and car variations would possibly unlock a significant step forward, an approach Red Bull implemented last season with gradual success.
But Verstappen was quick to point out that this year’s car under the new regulations was proving a much bigger problem than it’s predecessor.
“Yeah but I think we have bigger problems that what we had last year. Some parts of the car at the moment are not working how we want them to work.”
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/it-was-again-very-difficult-verstappen-reacts-to-q2-exit-in-japan-as-he.3DwP63AMSOF9X0gAFpOIFs
Onboard footage from the cockpit of Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari has surfaced showing the Monegasque driver fuming following qualifying for the Japanese Grand Prix.
While Leclerc qualified fourth for the Japanese Grand Prix, he fumed over the team radio: “I can’t understand quali, it’s a f**king joke! I go faster in corners, throttle earlier, for f**k’s sake, I’m losing everything in the straight!”
The FIA made a tweak to the qualifying rules for Japan, altering the maximum permitted energy recharge from nine megajoules to eight megajoules to reduce the amount of super clipping. This came after some drivers argued that the more they pushed the limits during qualifying, the more super clipping they suffered ahead of the braking zones.
Although the rule change seemed to have an overall positive effect on qualifying, Leclerc later told the media: “I would say that [my heart rate] was little bit higher when on the straight, you start losing time being flat out.
“But in the corner itself… I mean, these are the kind of things that happen in Q3 and especially with my driving style, I know it happens, very often in the past. But it pays off more than it hurts you.
“Apart from with these cars it seems to bite you more than it pays off, just because then I lost a big amount of speed in the straight, not a huge amount. Nothing close to what I had in Shanghai, but still I’ve lost some time compared to my Q2 lap, which is very frustrating, but this is something we’ll look at and try to understand.”
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/charles-leclerc-fumes-in-ferrari-radio-outburst-after-japanese-gp-qualifying/10808941/
Two-time Formula 1 world champion Fernando Alonso feels Suzuka’s driving challenge is “gone” with the 2026 regulations as they are.
The storied Japanese Grand Prix venue is a driver favourite with its challenging first sector Esses and its high-speed Degner and Spoon sequences. However, due to the energy saving demands of F1’s 2026 regulations, drivers are approaching those corners at lower speeds as they are useful opportunities to recharge the battery.
In that respect, Suzuka bears similarities to Melbourne’s Albert Park as a challenging venue for these regulations, because it has only few hard braking zones where drivers can harvest energy naturally.
According to veteran Alonso, that means Suzuka’s unique driver challenge is now nowhere to be found.
“It’s gone,” he said. “I told you in Bahrain, the chef could drive the car in Turn 10/11. Maybe not the chef, but 50% of the team members, I think, at least can drive in Suzuka. Because, as I said a few times already, high-speed corners now become the charging station for the car.
“You go slower, you charge the battery in the high-speed [sections], and then you have the full power on the straight. So, driver skill is not really needed anymore. You just need to back off the throttle or turn down the battery and you charge the thing. So, yeah, no more challenge in the high-speed.”
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/fernando-alonso-suzuka-driving-challenge-gone-with-f1-2026-cars/10808905/
Kimi Antonelli has raved about the “incredible feeling” he experienced upon claiming pole position for the Japanese Grand Prix, building on his formidable start to the 2026 season.
Just two weeks after becoming the sport’s youngest-ever polesitter, the 19-year-old repeated the feat at the Suzuka Circuit by beating his Mercedes team mate George Russell by nearly three tenths in Q3.
The Briton was far from his best as he struggled with balance problems, but Antonelli seemed to evade any such issues and ended the session with an unassailable time of 1m 28.778s, helping the Silver Arrows to lock out the front row for the third successive round.
“It was a good session, I’m happy with it,” he said after Qualifying. “I think I was able to improve lap by lap. That first Q3 lap was good. Second lap was looking strong but then at Turn 11 I locked up and lost quite a bit of time so it was a shame.
“I was a bit annoyed with that but [I got] pole position. I felt good in the car, felt good with the track, and now focusing on tomorrow.”
Reflecting on the support he has enjoyed over the weekend, he explained in an earlier interview: “The fans here in Japan are pretty incredible. There’s so much passion and racing at a historic track is an incredible feeling.
“The track is unbelievable to drive with this kind of car plus the fans give us a little bit more of a boost when we go on track.”
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/antonelli-soaks-up-incredible-feeling-after-securing-pole-position-in-japan.3GBYHHlD1c7l5tHNlpsCy3