Reprimanded Verstappen beats Ferraris to Suzuka F1 pole

Formula 1 champion-elect Max Verstappen saw off the Ferrari challenge to take pole for the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka.

Verstappen had a tenth in hand over the Ferraris in both the first and second segments, but stretched his advantage on his first attempt of Q3, going a quarter of a second clear of nearest rival Charles Leclerc.

But he also nearly caused a crash with the McLaren of Lando Norris on that first run, his RB18 snapping sideways as he tried to get heat into the tyres on an outlap through 130R, forcing Norris – likewise on his outlap – to take late evasive action on the inside and cut the corner. Verstappen held his hand up to apologise to Norris on the cooldown lap, as the post-session investigation was swiftly announced for the incident.

That was close! 🙈

Lando Norris just avoids Max Verstappen, who gets a huge kick of oversteer coming into the final chicane

No contact is made and they both continue#JapaneseGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/L0sztfX65N

— Formula 1 (@F1) October 8, 2022

The stewards ultimately handed Verstappen a reprimand for the incident, meaning he kept his fifth pole of 2022.

Both Leclerc and Carlos Sainz gave it a real good go of reaching Verstappen’s benchmark on their second runs, Leclerc just 0.01s off and Sainz half a tenth behind, with Verstappen losing “a part of a duct’ on his final lap and failing to improve but hanging on to provisional pole anyway.

Sergio Perez was a distant fourth in the other Red Bull, four tenths off the pace but nearly half a second up on fifth-placed Esteban Ocon.

Ocon and Alpine team-mate Fernando Alonso were split by the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton, with the other Mercedes of George Russell settling for eighth, a tenth down on his team-mate.

Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel, something of a Suzuka specialist, narrowly escaped elimination in both Q1 and Q2 and ran off-sequence in Q3 to take ninth. With this likely to be his final Suzuka F1 appearance, the German radioed in an emotional ‘arigato’ followed by “I will miss this place, but we have tomorrow to score some points”.

Norris never got in a particularly representative lap in Q3, and wound up half a second behind Vettel in 10th.

Vettel’s late Q2 run that left him ‘ecstatic’ meant elimination for the other McLaren of Daniel Ricciardo, despite the Aussie having looked his most potent in a long time relative to Norris.

Ricciardo was three tenths up on Norris after their first Q2 runs and appeared on course to outqualify him on merit for the first time since the Spanish GP in May, but couldn’t improve on his second run – whereas Norris did, handily.

The result clearly frustrated Ricciardo, who gloomily responded with an expletive when told he’d missed out by 0.003s.

The two Alfas of Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu slotted in 12th and 14th, split by the AlphaTauri of local hero Yuki Tsunoda.

Under-pressure Haas driver Mick Schumacher, in a new chassis after his inlap crash in FP1, outpaced “surprised” team-mate Kevin Magnussen by two tenths to ensure Haas was represented in Q2 – but then couldn’t get a good lap in late in the second segment, finishing a distant 15th.

Williams driver Alexander Albon had his first Q1 flying lap deleted for track limits at Spoon but managed to go quicker at the chequered flag, albeit only getting 16th place, half a tenth away from bagging a Q2 spot at the expense of Vettel.

The Alpine-bound Pierre Gasly had a massive lock-up at the hairpin on his final lap, both he and Tsunoda having complained of braking issues – with Gasly absolutely furious on the radio after his elimination, yelling that he’d had to do the lap with “no brakes” and that there was “no point”.

Magnussen, Lance Stroll and Nicholas Latifi – whose five-place grid penalty for clashing with Zhou in Singapore was rendered irrelevant by him qualifying last – completed the order, Stroll having also struggled through the hairpin on his final run.

Qualifying Results