Max Verstappen restores normal service for Red Bull with Japanese F1 GP pole

Faint hopes that Max Verstappen could be vulnerable were summarily dashed in qualifying for the Japanese Grand Prix. The runaway championship leader delivered a blistering pole position as normal service for the world champion and Red Bull resumed at Suzuka yesterday.

Verstappen’s pole lap with a time of 1min 28.877sec was almost six-tenths clear of the second-placed McLaren of Oscar Piastri, with his teammate Lando Norris in third. Piastri, a rookie taking his first frontrow start for a grand prix, had put in an immense lap on a circuit he has never raced before to become only the fifth Australian to make the front row.

It was hugely impressive yet for all that Verstappen had pace of a different class, the gap the largest here for 19 years. The high-speed corners of Suzuka are very much suited to Red Bull’s strengths and the track could perhaps not be more flattering to the current formula of cars, with their enormous downforce and overall speed.

Yet Verstappen was still threading this needle with the arch confidence of a man absolutely at one with his car. As he barrelled through the esses of the first sector he was simply flying, flicking right and left as if glued to the track and it set up the rest of the lap that was to prove so punishingly quick. – GuardianSport