Max Verstappen says that he told himself to just send it in his final qualifying lap at the F1 Japanese GP. He also wasn’t sure if his car would even stick in a few places during the lap, that got him his 41st career pole.
The Dutchman has scored his first pole of the season after a lot of difficulties throughout the weekend. With a 1:26.983 he just didn’t break the magic 1:26 barrier but also the former lap record set by Sebastian Vettel in 2019. The gap to the two McLaren’s is marginal with only 0.044 seconds between them. It’s the first time since the 2024 Austrian GP, Verstappen starts an F1 race from pole.
Verstappen was not sure if the car would stick on run to pole at F1 Japanese GP
“A lot of happiness when I crossed the line,” Verstappen said after qualifying when asked on how he felt crossing the line first. He explained that throughout qualifying, Red Bull made small adjustments to improve the car: “The whole qualifying, we just kept on trying to improve the situation a bit. And the final lap, honestly, it was very good.
”I had a lot of fun out there, being fully committed everywhere. Some places, not sure if I was actually going to keep it or not, but yeah, it was really nice. And also great for the team as well.“
Then asked where were some of the points around the lap that he was really pushing and maybe even felt like he went a bit too far over the limits, Verstappen named mostly corners from the first sector.
“I think exit 1 into 2, 6, 7, 8 and then Spoon. Those places I was like, ‘well, I hope it’s going to stick.’ But it did. And when I crossed the line, I could see my name pop up. I knew Oscar (Piastri) was still behind me, but I was already just very happy with what I did there because I didn’t even expect to be close to that. That was a nice moment.”
”Just send it in” on pole lap for F1 Japanese GP says Max Verstappen
During Friday action, Verstappen described his car like its flexing, when giving feedback. Asked on how different the RB21 felt in Q3, compared to when the car was at its worst, the four-time world champion said that the team still has some work to do.
“I mean actually it was a bit better. I think that issue was a lot better today. But at the same time, the through corner balance is still what we need to work on.
”I think on low fuel over one lap, some bits you can mask a little bit. But it’s still not like I go into the lap fully confident and comfortable. So the last lap I was like, well, I’m just going to not try and feel uncomfortable – just send it in and see what we get.
”It’s very rare, that a lap like that then can stick, but this time it worked well. We know that we have some issues that we want to solve, but it’s clearly not easy to solve them at the moment.”
Verstappen starts the race ahead of Norris and Piastri. There is some rain predicted, which could play into the hands of the Red Bull driver as overtaking is difficult around the Suzuka International Circuit.
