Following a tough practice day at Suzuka, Max Verstappen bounced back in the all-important qualifying session, nailing his last effort to grab a slightly surprising pole position.
Max Verstappen was struggling for outright pace across the practice sessions on Friday and Saturday morning, but he managed to turn his fortunes around for the all-important qualifying session.
Following Friday’s practice day, the reigning champion made a series of changes to his RB21, including tweaks to the weight distribution, aerodynamic balance, suspension setup, which has allowed him to take on the fight against the McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri.
The Dutchman delivered a brilliant lap in the closing stages of qualifying, posting a record-breaking time of 1m26.983s tp beat Norris and Piastri by 12 and 44 thousands of a second.
Speaking of his weekend in Japan, Verstappen commented: “It’s been an incredible qualifying for us even though the weekend has been quite tough so far. We kept working and the changes that we made going into qualifying helped as we were lacking a bit of pace before.
“The car got a little better and we could attack the corners a bit more. During qualifying we kept trying to find little gains and drive to the limit meaning that we improved nicely, which made the difference today. Every lap that we did we built on and learned from.”
“We maximised what we had, didn’t make any mistakes in the lap and it was a great result in the end. Pole was a surprise for everyone as so far this year we have not been the best on race pace, so I am very happy for the Team. Tomorrow the rain might make it a bit more of an interesting race and we will do our best to get the best possible result.”
Reflecting on Red Bull’s qualifying day in Suzuka, the Milton Keynes-based outfit’s team boss Christian Horner was understandably delighted with Verstappen’s outstanding performance, and he praised Tsunoda’s quick adaptation to his new car despite the Japanese driver’s setback at the end of Q2.
“An unbelievable lap from Max to take a fourth consecutive pole position here in Suzuka! We’ve turned the car upside down this weekend and Max has worked hard with his team to get the car in the window. Collectively, they have done a great job and then Max went and nailed it.
“That was one of his best laps in qualifying ever, plus a new lap record; truly outstanding. It was a very well deserved, if not slightly unexpected pole.
“It was unfortunate for Yuki who just lost a couple of tenths in the first sector that cost him a chance of Q3. He’s settled in well and has been right there all weekend until that moment. He will race well from there tomorrow.
Commenting on the challenge of getting the car into a working window, Horner has revealed that Verstappen and his engineering team led by Gianpiero Lambiase has made many tweaks to the RB21’s setup, including changes to the weight distribution, aerodynamic configuration and suspension setup.
“They’ve turned the car upside down this weekend. We’ve been around the houses with it and Max and his team have done a great job, just getting the car coming into the window and the tyres coming into the right place, and just bring everything together.
“I think the McLarens, if they’d put their laps together, on the theoretical, they’re half-a-tenth quicker. But they didn’t get that together. With Max, he left nothing on the table. That was one of his best laps in Qualifying ever.”
