The Saturday in F1 Japanese GP was hectic with long-runs fitted in the scene, as qualifying proved to be confusing for many.
After a washout in FP2, teams and drivers were forced to long-runs in FP3 on Saturday of F1 Japanese GP. They had to squeezer in both the race run and also qualifying stint which left a lot of drivers confused in qualifying as per their radio messages.
The Red Bull pair did all what they had to do to secure a 1-2 finish with Max Verstappen securing pole by just the 0.066s margin over Sergio Perez, who looked pretty comfortable at a venue where he struggled last year at the fag end of the season.
Despite the pole, Verstappen feels Red Bull might struggle a bit on their race pace side who reckons Ferrari do have some pace in their bag for Sunday. While both Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc agree that they look better in the race but it will be difficult.
It was a terrible run for Leclerc who was just eighth as he felt he didn’t do his tyre preparation well enough to attack. There was nothing wrong with the car as Sainz showed, it was more down to tyre temperature and preparation from his end.
Sainz even talked about the high-speed pace of McLaren, which helped Lando Norris to edge them out and which will be handy in the grand prix. Oscar Piastri reckons the driver eventually made the difference for his teammate to be third while he was sixth.
It was halves situation for both Mercedes and Aston Martin too, where Lewis Hamilton reckoned he had more pace while George Russell struggled on his final run. Fernando Alonso felt good with the update, but Lance Stroll was nowhere.
Verstappen: “I started to lose time from Turn 13 onwards, so it’s very sensitive around here with the tyres. As soon as you push maybe a bit too hard in Sector 1, you run out of tyres at the end, and that’s what happened to me in my final lap. So that’s why I didn’t really improve a lot. Also, my last chicane, because the front tyres were giving up, I didn’t hit the kerb how it should have been. Let’s say that wasn’t ideal, but it was still good enough. Of course, I always want it to be perfect, but that’s not possible. Luckily, it was still good enough today. For the race, I think so far I haven’t been happy with my long runs. I think the pace wasn’t what I would have liked. So it’s a bit of a question mark going into tomorrow because looking at the long runs, especially Ferrari, they look very comfortable. So maybe they were not so quick over one lap today, but they were definitely fast in the long run.
“So we’ll have to wait and see how that will evolve tomorrow in the race. As for the brake thing, a bit more of a supervising role maybe to double check some things but of course also some things that you change on the car. You know here and there it’s a bit of a rush job sometimes when you want to change in between FP1 or 2 or overnight. Sometimes it can be some big things that you want to change and you run out of time because of a curfew or whatever. Yeah, so basically just make sure that you double-check stuff because everyone is always very pressured and you don’t put the blame on one single person. But it’s always nice that there is a guy that maybe just goes after a few things and then some more things are coming. But it’s just basically more to just double-check stuff in general.”
Perez: “It was so easy to lose a tenth or two just by over-pushing a little bit in some of the corners. The amount of energy that we put into the tyres around here, it’s quite high, so it was quite difficult just to get the perfect lap nailed. It was close. It was close today, but I think the whole weekend has been good. We’ve made some good progress. We managed to keep that consistency through the qualifying. And now, yeah, let’s see what we are able to do tomorrow. I don’t think we are looking great at the moment in our long-run pace, but we’ve done some changes and hopefully that will translate into a better race pace. In terms of the updates, I think it hasn’t changed much the characteristic. I think we just improved. We got a better car. I think for now it’s… Probably this track, it’s hard to see the upgrade, because it’s more biased to other circuits. So I think from that point of view, we got to wait a couple of races to really learn from it, from that package.”
Norris: “Closer, but probably not as close as we were today. It was close between many people, you know, us, Mercedes, Aston, Ferrari. They didn’t seem to have quite the advantage as the last few weekends. So between eight cars, we knew it was going to be tricky. So to come out on top, behind the fastest two, I think is a good job by us. So I’m happy. It was tricky to put in the good laps, but my two Q3 laps I was the happiest with, which is always a good bonus. And two tenths is not far away. I think if we kind of look back to where we were last year we were even further away, I think five tenths off of pole. And this is the first track we’ve come back to, which is where we had our upgrades last season.
“So I think it’s our best comparison of how we’ve improved over the winter and we’re quite a bit closer. So I think that’s a very good sign. As for the race, I don’t know. There’s not a lot to do. You know, first lap, try and get a good start. Obviously last year I was side by side with Max into Turn 1. So hopefully trying to redo that. But it’s tricky. They’re quick. They complained about their race pace, but I don’t think they’ve had a bad race in the last, four or five years, so I think they’re going to be good tomorrow. Of course we’ve got a lot of pressure from behind so we have to keep an eye on the mirrors. But at the same time I want to go forward and I think we have pace to stay where we are, so that’s my goal.”
Leclerc: “Most of the time when you’re finishing P8 there’s always an explanation for it, whether there’s a mistake in one corner, whether it’s set-up. But today honestly the car felt quite in a good place. The lap felt quite OK. Just not enough grip available to go faster. When this is the case, especially when you look at the sectors there are patterns into Q1 that have been a bit strange, I believe it’s more related to tyre preparation. But it’s not been only once this year, so we’ll have to look into it and try to understand what I can to get those tyres ready for qualifying. At the moment I’m struggling with that. Today I don’t really have an explanation apart from that as of now.
“We are further away than what we thought, maybe the car characteristics doesn’t suit as much at Suzuka as the Red Bull does. It’s a bit strange because I think on the long run we are pretty good but in the short run we were nowhere, so that is why, it tells me that it is probably mostly tyre related when it is like this. I’m optimistic about our race pace. I’m less optimistic to overtake on a track like this. Suzuka is normally a very difficult track to overtake so if we have enough pace to overtake, then I think we can do great tomorrow. But I think it’s going to be difficult.”
Hamilton: “It’s been a night and day different weekend so far, just in terms of how comfortable I felt in the car. We did a really good job over this past week, just the analysis everyone’s done at the factory to try and understand how we can get the car in a sweeter spot. The car has been much nicer to drive this weekend. And particularly on a track like this, where you need a nice balance, this is the nicest it’s felt over the last three years. Last year, we were over a second off, we were seven tenths today. But also this weekend, I’m not trying all these different random things.
“So I’ve been just much more focused on making sensible changes. And I think it’s worked. I was hoping we would be further ahead. But unfortunate. The car felt good. The last lap I already felt when I went to Turn 1 I had a bit of oversteer on the way in, so I knew already it was not going to be spectacular. I was already a tenth down out of Turn 2. I know why that is, but there’s not much more left. I pretty much got everything out of the car. We just need to add performance to it.”
Stroll: “Everything felt fine. Just very slow today. No pace in the car and no pace in myself in my car. The car looks quick and Fernando was quick, so I don’t know. I don’t have more answers. We have to look at the data, see if tyres, everything was working properly in the right window. It’s just one of those days, I don’t know, I don’t have answers yet, we have to look at everything.”
The fine form for Visa Cash App RB’s Yuki Tsunoda continued in F1 Japanese GP qualifying after he made it into Q3 with a chance now of points in his home event. His teammate Daniel Ricciardo wasn’t too far off either after a better show to be 11th.
This comes at a time when he is facing the heat. It was somewhat better for Alpine’s Esteban Ocon too, who made it in Q2 for the second consecutive race as teammate Pierre Gasly struggled for traction where he suffered from balance and degradation.
It was similar case for Haas, Williams and Stake F1 Team as well. While Nico Hulkenberg was pleased with Q2 result on a circuit which troubles them, Kevin Magnussen lamented set-up problems that he faced since the start of the weekend.
It was mostly struggle for both Alexander Albon and Logan Sargeant, even though the Thai made it in Q2. As for the Stake pair, Valtteri Bottas was a bit greedy of making it in Q3, but Zhou Guanyu lamented the FP3 loss which set him back.
Tsunoda: “I’m very happy. But at the same time it wasn’t easy qualifying than I expected. Struggled with a little bit balance, particularly slow speed corners. And I didn’t know why, what’s happened there, but just really struggling. And but yeah, able to going through Q3, I think as a team, we did a fantastic job to line up both cars around P10. So I think there’s a good chance that we can score points. But at the same time we did as much as we can to… Even score a point, that’ll be great. And if with both cars – even greater. It’s not a bad thing to be. And you know, that’s what I have to be, you know, especially now – it’s very tight midfield and, you know, it’s a bit of a step far away from the top five group, so it’s always being around the top 10 is always crucial to be able to score points, especially now. So yeah, very happy with the performance last three races and, yeah, we just kept doing.”
Ocon: “I think a small satisfaction, let’s call it like that. I think looking at before the session, it looked to be impossible for us to go to Q2. So, that’s why I say, you know, smart satisfaction because it was a bit unexpected. And it looked looked okay, for Q1, I thought I could, continue progressing and get quicker. But unfortunately, that’s all there was, there was not enough for us to be improving and we’re still quite far from Q3. So we need to keep on digging, and hopefully things will happen tomorrow so we can get into the points. I think it’s a little bit everywhere, to be honest.
“At the moment, there’s a lot of details, a lot of big details which we are struggling in, and I don’t think there are like super weaknesses or super good points. I think it’s quite average everywhere, I would say. And that’s where we need to keep on digging and keep on pushing for sure. But what I would say is that the job that we are doing on the track, you know, from improving the car session to session… FP3 I was really unhappy with the car, we changed tons of things. That’s giving us good confidence to be doing that. And obviously going into qualy it works. It worked in the right direction. I think we maximized the potential. So that’s good. And I’m proud with the work that we are doing since couple of weekends now.”
Magnussen: “I think we improved the car for qualifying, but we started quite far from where we were with the set-up from yesterday. It’s not been the cleanest run-up to qualifying, we’ll run this set-up tomorrow, but we improved the car and the consistency – it’s still just lacking pace. We knew this track wasn’t going to be our track, but on top of that, on our side of the garage, we’ve maybe just missed the beat a little bit on the build up to the weekend. Anyway, we have a race tomorrow, and hopefully – like the first three races of the season, we can make some ground up in that. We’ll certainly be trying.”
Albon: “We’ve been struggling a lot this weekend and I didn’t feel comfortable in the car, which is frustrating but it’s where we expected to be. The way we’ve gone with the car, we’ve made some corners better but also, it’s made some worse. Around this circuit, you can’t be sliding because the track is so aggressive and it tears up the tyres. Normally we can get away with this when the track is smooth, but when it’s rough like this, we pay quite a big price. I also suffered a lot of overheating and when you’re having to do tyre management through corners to save the tyres, it’s tricky to manage. Looking to tomorrow, the car felt okay in the few long runs we’ve done during FP3, however strategy is going to be important, so let’s see how we go
Guanyu: “I mean, obviously not the best preparation when we miss the end of FP3 and since it was very difficult and we made a massive change of the car. For me it was like with two laps only on track and that was difficult to distract everyting, looking how close the gap was. So lap wasn’t clean, but it wasn’t like terrible. So yeah, I think if I had a few more laps before that, it would be a different story for sure. It’s very important. I think now these years that’s [important] we have no issue throughout the session, especially I think when we getting prepared for qualy like FP3, which is the most important session of the weekend before everything can happen. So yeah, unfortunately, that’s one of this weekends again that on Saturday we have an issue before quali, and yeah I think it’s not right.”
Here’s how F1 Japanese GP qualifying panned out
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