Japanese GP: Verstappen on pole pending investigation for Norris incident

Red Bull Racing’s championship leader, Max Verstappen has secured pole position alongside Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc but the Dutchman is under investigation for an incident with Lando Norris.

How qualifying unfolded…

Q1

As the pit exit light went green, to signal the start of the Japanese Grand Prix qualifying session, Williams’ Nicholas Latifi was the first driver out onto the track, ahead of Alpha Tauri’s two drivers, Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda. Ahead of the grand prix, Latifi will serve a five-place grid penalty for causing a collision with Alfa Romeo’s Guanyu Zhou at the Singapore Grand Prix last weekend.

While Latifi was the first out onto the circuit, Gasly was the first to set a timed lap on the board but he was soon beaten by Tsunoda who set the benchmark to beat: 1:31.631.

With 13 minutes left on the clock, a handful of drivers peeled out onto the track to get their banker laps in.

After the first set of flying laps, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen topped the timing sheets with a 1:30.224, ahead of the Ferrari duo of Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc who were second and third, respectively. While the Williams duo of Alexander and Latifi, and Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton sat in the bottom three.

However, the Mercedes pairing of George Russell and Hamilton sat on the cusp of elimination after the team ran an experiment to see if they could get out of Q1 on the yellow-ringed medium tyres. However, their times weren’t competitive enough and were forced to go back out on a fresh set of red-walled soft tyres – the same tyres the rest of the field had used.

Eliminated:

20. Nicholas Latifi, Williams

19. Lance Stroll, Aston Martin

18. Kevin Magnussen, Haas

17. Pierre Gasly, Alpha Tauri

16. Alexander Albon, Williams

Q2

As the second phase of qualifying got underway, Sainz was the first driver to set a lapped time on the board with a 1:30.444, 0.042 seconds quicker than his Monegasque teammate. However, the defending world champion was able to pip the Spaniard by 0.098 seconds to go to the top of the timing sheets.

After the first flying laps of Q2, the order remained the same as Q1 with Verstappen on top, ahead of Sainz and Leclerc respectively. At the other end of the table, Tsunoda found himself plum last (in P15) with a lap time of 1:32.530 – over a second behind Haas’ Mick Schumacher who was in P14.

Red Bull’s Sergio Perez led the field back out onto the track, when the time came for a number of drivers to conduct a second flying lap. However, Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel was eager to get on with it, the four-time world champion overtook a number of driver on their out laps.

This out-lap strategy seemed to work for Vettel as the former world champion’s final flying lap which promoted him up to P6. After everyone else’s second flying laps, Vettel squeezed his way through to Q3 – in P10 – in his final Japanese Grand Prix weekend as the chequered flag fell.

Eliminated: 

15. Mick Schumacher, Haas

14. Guanyu Zhou, Alfa Romeo

13. Yuki Tsunoda, Alpha Tauri

12. Valtteri Bottas, Alfa Romeo

11. Daniel Ricciardo, McLaren

Q3

Unlike the previous two-thirds for qualifying, the Ferrari of Leclerc and Alpine’s Esteban Ocon were eager to get on with it as they rushed their out laps to get their tyres into the optimal temperature window – the Alpine out in front. As a result, Ocon naturally set the first lap but this was easily beaten by the remaining 10 drivers.

After the first flying laps, Verstappen topped the timing board with a  , ahead of Leclerc and Sainz, respectively, with Perez rounding out the top four.

In his final outing at the Japanese GP, Sebastian Vettel set his lap time and returned to the pit lane – not to return for a second run.

In the final runs, only a number of drivers – like Hamilton – were only able to improve their lap times while Verstappen’s initial first lap was enough to secure pole position. However, he will be invesitgated after the session for an incident with McLaren’s Lando Norris as both drivers have been summoned to the stewards.

The incident between the Red Bull and McLaren driver was a near-miss as Norris attempted to pass Verstappen at 130R – turn . Both drivers were on out-laps but a weave from Verstappen forced Norris to take evasive action and the Briton skipped across the grass verge to avoid contact with the Red Bull driver.

Top 10:

10. Lando Norris, McLaren

9. Sebastian Vettel, Aston Martin

8. George Russell, Mercedes

7. Fernando Alonso, Alpine

6. Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes

5. Esteban Ocon, Alpine

4. Sergio Perez, Red Bull

3. Carlos Sainz, Ferrari 

2. Charles Leclerc, Ferrari

1. Max Verstappen, Red Bull*

* Pending investigation 

That’s it for the article; Japanese GP: Verstappen on pole pending investigation for Norris incident! What do you think, will Max Verstappen secure his second world championship this weekend? Let us know in the comments!

Read more Formula 1 here:

• Japanese GP: Verstappen fastest in final practice after first dry outing
• Nyck de Vries set to join Alpha Tauri for 2023
• Pierre Gasly set to join Alpine for 2023
• Japanese GP: Russell takes top honours in damp conditions
• Japanese GP: Alonso tops soaking free practice in Suzuka

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