Japanese Grand Prix: Max Verstappen pips Lando Norris to pole at Suzuka

F1 Correspondent at Suzuka

Japanese Grand Prix

Venue: Suzuka Dates: 4-6 April Race start: 06:00 BST on Sunday

Coverage: Live radio commentary of practice and qualifying on BBC 5 Sports Extra, race live on BBC Radio 5 Live from 05:30. Live text updates on the BBC Sport website and app

Max Verstappen stunned his own Red Bull team and rivals McLaren by grabbing pole position from Lando Norris for the Japanese Grand Prix.

Lagging behind the McLarens throughout the weekend, Verstappen pipped Norris by 0.012 seconds with his final lap of the session.

The second McLaren of Oscar Piastri, fastest on the first laps of the session by 0.226secs from Verstappen, was third, ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.

Mercedes’ George Russell took fifth, while Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton was eighth.

When Piastri fell short of beating Verstappen with the final lap of the session, confirming the Dutchman’s pole, the awe in the Red Bull garage was clear.

“That is insane,” his race engineer Giampiero Lambiase said to Verstappen over the radio.

Even Norris accepted that his rival had excelled himself, saying: “Max did an amazing lap.”

Norris added: “I’m happy because I feel like I got everything out of the car today. My lap was very good. We were on the limit of what we had but we just didn’t have enough today.”

Piastri, though, felt he could have done better.

“The last lap just didn’t quite come together as I wanted,” the Australian said. “Incredibly tight margins and still all to play for tomorrow. Just a little bit left on the table.”

Verstappen’s new team-mate Yuki Tsunoda could manage only 15th place. The Japanese, drafted in for this race after Red Bull demoted Liam Lawson following just two races, was 0.498secs down on Verstappen in the second session, after which he was knocked out.

He told the team over the radio that he had done a “pretty messy” lap.

It was a disappointment for the Japanese, who had been close behind Verstappen in final practice earlier on Saturday.

Grass fires again caused a problem – the first part of qualifying was stopped for six minutes when the fifth fire of the weekend broke out on the exit of the fast 130R corner.

Officials had doused the grass with water before qualifying in an attempt to prevent any further fires breaking out after four stoppages throughout practice on Friday and Saturday.

They had considered a pre-emptive burning of the grass but decided there was not enough time before qualifying and too big a risk that advertising hoardings could catch fire if it was not properly controlled or monitored.

Rain is forecast overnight and it remain to be seen how Formula 1’s governing body, the FIA, will address the issue before the race.

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