Triple world champion Max Verstappen leads his Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez by just a tiny margin of 0.066 seconds to top qualifying at the 2024 Japanese Grand Prix, with Lando Norris taking a solid third for McLaren.
The Red Bull drivers were amongst just a handful of drivers to gain lap time on the second runs in Q3, where Ferrari’s challenge was unable to materialise and the Mercedes drivers ended up behind Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso.
Verstappen led the way with a time of one minute, 28.240 seconds on the first Q3 run, where Norris was his closest rival after producing a then session-best opening sector.
But he could not replicate that on the second attempt, where Perez – leading Verstappen on the track – just got ahead of the McLaren, while the world champion in the other RB20 flew to a pole-securing one minute, 28.197 seconds – largely thanks to a fast first sector.
Behind the top trio came Carlos Sainz for Ferrari, ahead of Alonso and Oscar Piastri.
Lewis Hamilton looked to be getting close to Red Bull with his pace late in Q2 but faded to just seventh for Mercedes, with Charles Leclerc was eighth.
The Ferrari driver had a unique Q3 in producing just a single flying lap ahead of the rest going for a second attempt, as he had to use a second set of tyres to escape Q1 earlier in qualifying.
Leclerc ended up over half a second down on Verstappen’s time, but did edge out George Russell and home fan hero Yuki Tsunoda.
In Q2, Tsunoda’s improvement on his second go in the middle segment knocked out his RB teammate Daniel Ricciardo, to the delight of the Japanese crowd.
Nico Hulkenberg ended up in P12 for Haas having lost his first Q2 run to going too wide between the two parts of Spoon Curve, with Valtteri Bottas out in P13 after sitting tenth following the first attempts.
Alex Albon only completed one run in Q2 for Williams at the end of the segment and took P14 ahead of Alpine driver Esteban Ocon, who escaped Q1 for the second race in a row.
In the opening segment, running offset ahead of the rest for the final runs boosted Albon to progressing in P15, while Bottas’s last-minute improvement knocked Lance Stroll out of Q1 in P16 when Alonso was second at that stage.
Behind came Alpine’s Pierre Gasly, who matched Leclerc in the first sector on their last laps in Q1 – the Ferrari driver having to use an extra set of new softs here after initially ending up in the congested mid-pack after a poor opening sector on his Q1 first run – Haas driver Kevin Magnussen, Logan Sargeant’s Williams and Sauber’s Zhou Guanyu.
Albon, Russell and Piastri face post-qualifying investigations – Albon for possibly going too slowly at one stage late in Q1, with the latter pair for an incident when Russell’s car was released into Piastri’s path when they exited the pits at the start of the session.
So a close session between the Red Bull drivers and yet Max Verstappen came out on top. Sergio Perez produced a fine effort to get a front row spot while Lando Norris takes a solid third for McLaren.
Japanese Grand Prix, qualifying results:
1 Max Verstappen Red Bull 1:28.197
2 Sergio Perez Red Bull 1:28.263
3 Lando Norris McLaren 1:28.489
4 Carlos Sainz Ferrari 1:28.682
5 Fernando Alonso Aston Martin 1:28.686
6 Oscar Piastri McLaren 1:28.760
7 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:28.766
8 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 1:28.786
9 George Russell Mercedes 1:29.008
10 Yuki Tsunoda RB 1:29.413
11 Daniel Ricciardo RB 1:29.472
12 Nico Hulkenberg Haas 1:29.494
13 Valtteri Bottas Sauber 1:29.593
14 Alexander Albon Williams 1:29.714
15 Esteban Ocon Alpine 1:29.816
16 Lance Stroll Aston Martin 1:30.024
17 Pierre Gasly Alpine 1:30.119
18 Kevin Magnussen Haas 1:30.131
19 Logan Sargeant Williams 1:30.139
20 Zhou Guanyu Sauber 1:30.143
Max Verstappen has continued his run of pole positions in 2024 by again taking P1 on the grid for the Japanese Grand Prix, with the Dutchman joined on the front row by Red Bull team mate Sergio Perez.
After initially setting the fastest time during the first runs of Q3 with a lap of 1m 28.240s, the world champion improved on his final effort to a 1m 28.197s. There was a valiant attempt from Perez, but the Mexican’s time was ultimately 0.066s off Verstappen’s, leaving him in P2.
Lando Norris took third, with Carlos Sainz putting himself into P4 off the back of his victory last time out in Australia. Fernando Alonso was the lead Aston Martin in fifth, ahead of birthday boy Oscar Piastri in sixth.
Lewis Hamilton will share the fourth row with future Ferrari team mate Charles Leclerc, ahead of George Russell in ninth – who is set to be investigated by the stewards for a pit lane incident in Q1 – while Yuki Tsunoda rounds out the top 10 at his home event.
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/verstappen-seals-pole-position-for-japanese-grand-prix-ahead-of-perez-and.83NPJV4umu6s8WAxfrE6T
Max Verstappen is concerned his race-pace form so far in Formula 1’s Japanese Grand Prix is not “as comfortable” as during the season’s initial rounds or his 2023 peaks.
The Suzuka weekend has unfolded unusually, with FP2 effectively being washed out by drizzle, which meant the teams spent most of FP3 on Saturday morning concentrating on long-run data gathering, rather than the typical qualifying simulation efforts.
When asked by Motorsport.com if he was surprised to see Ferrari fall from the pole fight it has engaged Red Bull in at the previous early 2024 rounds, Verstappen replied: “I cannot look inside the Ferrari garage [and say] why that is.
“But, it’s quite obvious that in the long run, they seem quite competitive. So, we’ll see tomorrow why that is or if it actually is the case like that.
“From our side, I have some ideas of what we have to look into to make tomorrow better and that’s what we already changed [on car set-up] after FP3.
‘So, hopefully that will be better for tomorrow. Our race pace is still not too bad, but it’s not how I have been feeling in some of the races this year and last year. As comfortable, let’s say like that.
“But, hopefully with the changes that we made it will be better.”
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/verstappen-not-as-comfortable-at-suzuka-as-in-previous-f1-races/10595659/
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc does not “have an answer” for a Formula 1 session that happens only “once in a season” after struggling in qualifying for the 2024 Japanese Grand Prix.
Leclerc, renowned for his one-lap pace, was only eighth fastest as he lapped 0.589 seconds slower than polesitter Max Verstappen while outgoing Scuderia team-mate Carlos Sainz ranked fourth.
Speaking to Sky Sports, Leclerc explained: “It’s one of those sessions maybe you get it once in a season. But it’s definitely not a good feeling.
“Everything feels okay, the balance is not way off – we can always improve a little bit like every qualifying.
“If I rely on the feeling at the end of the lap, I’m like, ‘OK, this is quite a good lap’. And then you look at the [leader] board and you are a second off.
“So, when this happens, normally we look more at tyres and the way you bring the tyres to temperature. I’ve tried many different things today and it didn’t work.”
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/leclerc-no-answer-for-once-in-a-season-f1-qualifying-struggle/10595633/
Fernando Alonso called his Japanese Grand Prix qualifying performance “unexpected” following Aston Martin’s Formula 1 car upgrades, but doesn’t feel he can sustain his fifth-place starting slot.
The Spaniard ended Q1 second fastest but as the pace sharpened he dropped to fifth place in both Q2 and Q3, but he still felt the pace jump from Aston’s car updates were greater than predicted.
Alonso ran the previous AMR24 car package during Friday practice at Suzuka, with team-mate Lance Stroll using the upgrades to provide comparison running, before both drivers switched to the upgrades – which focused on a revised sidepod and floor area changes.
“Yesterday I had the old package, today the new package. Tonight we will have all the data to confirm that, and to quantify the improvement, but everything felt good in qualifying,” Alonso said. “Little bit unexpected, to be that competitive, to be honest.
“Just a couple of hundreds from [Sainz] Ferrari, Leclerc [is] behind us, Piastri behind us and Mercedes. So we were here six months ago – 1.5 seconds from pole position. And now we are four tenths.”
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/alonso-aston-martin-upgrades-provided-unexpected-pace-in-f1-japan-qualifying/10595628/