Max Verstappen<\/a>, who was once more left stymied by his underperforming Red Bull. The four-time world champion is a master at Suzuka, where he has taken pole and won the last four races. However, with Red Bull still struggling, the Dutchman was knocked out in Q2, managing only 11th.<\/p>\nKimi Antonelli races round Suzuka on his way to claiming pole position. Photograph: Xavi Bonilla\/DPPI\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there\u2019s something wrong with the car,\u201d Verstappen told his engineer. \u201cIt\u2019s completely undriveable suddenly in this qualifying.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cAs soon as you really try to push, for me it was just all over the place. Really not good and also really doesn\u2019t give you confidence to attack any corner. I was just stuck, I couldn\u2019t push more.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are just a few parts in the car that are not working how they should be working. That\u2019s limiting us to even when you make just setup changes like you used to do in the past, it still doesn\u2019t respond, basically.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not even frustrated any more. I\u2019m beyond that. I don\u2019t get upset about it. I don\u2019t get disappointed or frustrated by it any more with what\u2019s going on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Behind the two Mercedes, who completed the team\u2019s fourth straight lockout of the front row, including the sprint race in China, a challenge from Ferrari failed to materialise. McLaren\u2019s Oscar Piastri was in third, a good result for the team, but he was more than three 10ths behind. While Charles Leclerc took fourth for Ferrari with his teammate Lewis Hamilton in sixth, the Monegasque was still down six 10ths. McLaren\u2019s defending world champion, Lando Norris, was in fifth.<\/p>\n
Antonelli and Mercedes were the class of the field, once more demonstrating that the pace advantage they opened the season with remains formidable. The Italian\u2019s first pole at Suzuka once more proved how enormously assured he is in a car that has pace, energy management and a stable platform in which the teenager has great confidence.<\/p>\n
On the opening runs in Q3 Antonelli and Russell had set the pace, with the Italian edging out his teammate by just under three 10ths, with a 1min 28.778sec lap. Neither could improve for their final laps but nor could the opposition, although McLaren will be enormously pleased in having put at least one car within three 10ths of the leaders, given the problems this season.<\/p>\n
Red Bull\u2019s Max Verstappen looks disconsolate after being eliminated in Q2 at the F1 Japanese GP. Photograph: Issei Kato\/Reuters<\/p>\n
Russell was clearly expectant of more, having been complaining of a lack of rear grip, but was pleased to have made the front row after acknowledging the team made a misstep in the setup.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe made an adjustment going into qualifying and the car just did not feel the same as it has in the whole weekend,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was just mainly through the esses, I couldn\u2019t attack any of the corners, the rear was trying to step out on me throughout.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is Antonelli, then, who holds the whip hand for now, notwithstanding the expected fast start from Ferrari, and Russell too being more than aware how vital track position will be in the race, so a frenetic dash down the hill into turns one and two can be expected. A win on Sunday would put Antonelli into the lead of the world championship for the first time.<\/p>\n
Pierre Gasly was in seventh for Alpine, Isack Hadjar eighth for Red Bull<\/a>, Gabriel Bortoleto an impressive ninth for Audi, with the rookie Arvid Lindblad also doing well to take 10th for Racing Bulls.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kimi Antonelli demonstrated he intends to be front and centre in the Formula One world championship battle after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":570048,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-570047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570047","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=570047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/570048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=570047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=570047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=570047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}