Max Verstappen claimed pole position at the Japanese Grand Prix for Red Bull with a mighty lap of Suzuka. With two superb runs on the figure-of-eight circuit, Verstappen beat the McLaren of Oscar Piastri into second place, an equally impressive showing for the rookie who takes his first front row GP start on Sunday. Piastri’s teammate Lando Norris was third. Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was in fourth, with Red Bull’s Sergio Pérez in fifth. Lewis Hamilton and George Russell were in seventh and eighth for Mercedes.
Verstappen, out early in every session, set the pace on his first hot run in Q3. He flew through the opening sector and the high-speed esses, was nailed on through the slower sweep of Spoon corner and buried the lap with a 1min 29.012sec time, an absolutely masterly display that was four-tenths clear of Piastri.
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The Red Bull was on rails across the lap, the car enormously well-suited to the high cornering speeds of Suzuka and Verstappen wielding it with crushing superiority. He nonetheless went out again to try to go quicker, managed to improve on what had looked all but perfect the first time round and indeed went one better with a 1m 28.877s. It was immense and more than a half a second up on Piastri who had put in a huge run in the McLaren to claim second.
This is Verstappen’s second pole in Japan, after he took the top spot here last year and converted it to his first win in Suzuka. It is his ninth this season, during which he has already taken 12 wins from 15 races.
Crucially, his 29th career pole represents a return to normal service for Red Bull after they were off the pace and struggling with balance and a lack of grip at the last round in Singapore. A comprehensive defeat by Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz at the Marina Bay circuit ended the team’s 14-race run of wins this season and Verstappen’s record of 10 victories in a row.
They were left scratching their heads as to quite where the performance had gone but back on a traditional circuit where they could run at their usual ride height, they were once more in a different class. Singapore was the street-circuit outlier that was expected and Verstappen eased back in after a frustrating weekend with another dominant display.
He can all but tie up his third consecutive title this weekend. He leads the drivers’ championship from Pérez by 151 points and needs to be ahead by only 146 after the next meeting in Qatar. A win here will make it all but a formality in Doha. The pole also means the team are well placed to claim the constructors’ championship in Japan with a full six races remaining. They will take their sixth team if they equal or better the points Mercedes score here and if Ferrari do not outscore them by 24 points or more, an enormously unlikely outcome.
Sainz was sixth for Ferrari and Yuki Tsunoda made it to Q3, to the delight of the home crowd, finishing in ninth for AlphaTauri. Fernando Alonso was in 10th for Aston Martin.
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Liam Lawson was in 11th for AlphaTauri, Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon in 12th and 14th for Alpine. Alex Albon was 13th for Williams and Kevin Magnussen in 15th for Haas.
Logan Sargeant crashed out in Q1, putting his car in the wall at the final corner and will start from the back of the grid. Valtteri Bottas and Guanyu Zhou were in 16th and 19th for Alfa Romeo. Lance Stroll was 17th for Aston Martin and Nico Hülkenberg in 18th for Haas.