Kimi Antonelli and George Russell claim a Mercedes 1-2 at Suzuka but Max Verstappen\u2019s Red Bull struggles continue.<\/p>\n
Published On 28 Mar 202628 Mar 2026<\/p>\n
A despondent Max Verstappen labelled his Red Bull car \u201cundriveable\u201d after the four-time world champion qualified a lowly 11th for Sunday\u2019s Japanese Grand Prix.<\/p>\n
The Dutchman, who has won at Suzuka for the past four years, dropped out in Q2 in another qualifying nightmare to compound a difficult start to the season.<\/p>\n
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He crashed out in Q3 in the season opener in Australia and has consistently railed against new Formula One regulations that see a 50-50 split between conventional and electrical power.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe car never turns mid-corner, but at the same time this weekend, it\u2019s just oversteering a lot on entry. It\u2019s really difficult, unpredictable,\u201d Verstappen, who took pole last year with a track-record lap time, told Sky Sports F1.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe thought we\u2019d fixed it a little bit in FP3 (third practice), I mean there was still a lot of understeer in the car, but now in qualifying for me it was again undriveable, so that\u2019s something that we need to look at.\u201d<\/p>\n
Verstappen, who finished sixth in Melbourne and retired from the Chinese Grand Prix two weeks ago, added: \u201cWe have problems that I cannot explain in detail here.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think in qualifying it just came back to a point where it became undriveable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Verstappen, 28, was involved in a public confrontation on Thursday when he ejected a reporter from his news conference.<\/p>\n
Antonelli leads Mercedes 1-2 with Russell at Suzuka<\/p>\n
Kimi Antonelli took pole position for the race ahead of Mercedes teammate George Russell.<\/p>\n
Mercedes have claimed one-two finishes at both grands prix so far in a flying start to the Formula One season and they were again dominant in dry conditions at Suzuka.<\/p>\n
The 19-year-old Italian Antonelli became the youngest pole-sitter in F1 history two weeks ago in China and he made it two in a row with a fastest lap of 1min 28.778sec.<\/p>\n
Early championship leader Russell was second, 0.298sec behind, with McLaren\u2019s Oscar Piastri third and Ferrari\u2019s Charles Leclerc fourth.<\/p>\n
Antonelli, who won the first grand prix of his F1 career in China two weeks ago, said it was \u201ca really clean session\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s still work to do in these big tracks with the energy, how to find a solution that allows us to push even more and drive without thinking too much,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut overall, I think it was good fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
Russell was fastest in Friday\u2019s first practice but he has trailed his younger teammate in every session since then.<\/p>\n
The British driver said he was struggling with his car for most of qualifying and admitted it was \u201cnot ideal\u201d going into Sunday\u2019s race.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been really comfortable with the car this whole weekend, it\u2019s just in qualifying something didn\u2019t quite feel right,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s see tonight, maybe we\u2019ll get some answers, maybe I can adjust my driving style to compensate.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kimi Antonelli and George Russell claim a Mercedes 1-2 at Suzuka but Max Verstappen\u2019s Red Bull struggles continue.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":570046,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[77,64,63,2057,817,813,816,941,3152,16255,44,588,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-570045","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-asia-pacific","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-f1","13":"tag-formula-1","14":"tag-formula1","15":"tag-japan","16":"tag-motorsports","17":"tag-netherlands","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-sport","20":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=570045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/570046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=570045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=570045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=570045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}