Japanese Grand Prix
Venue: Suzuka Date: Sunday, 6 April Race start: 06:00 BST
Coverage: Live on BBC Radio 5 Live from 05:30. Live text updates on the BBC Sport website and app
Was the lap that put Max Verstappen on pole position for the Japanese Grand Prix the best of his career?
The Red Bull driver himself certainly thought it was up there.
“It’s difficult,” Verstappen said. “I mean, I’ve had some really nice ones also in other places. But I think if you look at how our season started, even during this weekend… yeah, it’s very unexpected, I would say. And I think that makes it probably a very special one.”
His Red Bull team were stunned. And so were McLaren.
Verstappen had not looked as if he was in contention for pole at any point of the weekend until the final lap of qualifying at Suzuka. If McLaren had a rival, it had looked until then as if it would most likely be George Russell.
The four-time champion was struggling with the balance of his Red Bull throughout the practice sessions.
The team were making change after change to the car to try to make the driver happier. But on the first runs in the final qualifying session, he was still more than 0.2 seconds slower than the quickest McLaren, at that time Oscar Piastri.
But then Verstappen did something special. Really special.
“The last lap,” he said, “I was like: ‘Well, I’m just going to not try and feel comfortable – just send it in and see what we get.
“It’s very rare, of course, that a lap like that then can stick, but this time it worked well.”
Where, exactly, had he “sent it” and hoped for the best?
“Exit (Turn) One,” he said. “Into Two, Six, Seven, Eight and then Spoon (Curve). Those places I was like: ‘Well, I hope it’s going to stick.’ But it did.”
In the end, Lando Norris was the McLaren driver who ended up next best. The Briton, who had made a mistake at Turn Seven on his first lap, turned it on for his second attempt, improving by 0.2secs over his previous best lap, and snuck ahead of Piastri. But it was not enough to stop Verstappen’s genius.
“You’ve got to credit something when it’s a lap that good,” Norris said, “which he must have done, you know?”
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella added: “It looked like we were on the way to pole position. Lando managed to improve significantly on his second set. But with Max, I have stopped being surprised.
“He is such an incredible driver and for me this is one of the many cases in which we have to just acknowledge and say: ‘Hats off to Max.'”
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Verstappen being at the front sets up an intriguing race. Rain is forecast overnight and into the morning, and in the wet the Dutchman always excels. But the first race of the season in Australia was also wet, and there the McLarens had his measure.
In Melbourne, Norris and Piastri pulled out a significant lead over Verstappen as the track slowly dried before further rain. Verstappen came back at Norris later on, but Norris held him off, even with a car with a damaged floor.
And if it’s dry, there has to be a question mark over whether Verstappen can keep up a pace fast enough to fend off the McLarens.
Having the supernatural ability to pull off a single qualifying lap that gets every last millisecond out of a car is one thing. But if the car is not balanced, it’s unlikely to be able to be as competitive over a race distance.
Piastri, winner last time out in Shanghai, said: “We’ve got good pace. Max has obviously done a great job getting up on pole. But we’ve also got a great car for tomorrow and (are) still in the fight for the win.”
Norris was looking to the weather forecast when he said: “It’s probably going to be a bit of a race like Melbourne, and that was an exciting race for everyone.
“Now I’ve got to try and do some overtakes, you know? The unknown of the weather is going to make it exciting and nerve-racking for everyone. And I’ve got to try to get past the guy on my left (Verstappen). So, yeah, excited.”
If it’s wet, the stakes are high for everyone. Suzuka is arguably the most challenging race track on the calendar – hence the extreme satisfaction Verstappen felt at producing such a lap to grab pole.
Rain should lessen the risk of the race being interrupted by the grass fires that have caused five red-flag stoppages through practice and qualifying – certainly that’s the hope of the governing body – but it makes the challenge of Suzuka even more extreme.
Alex Albon, who starts ninth in his Williams, said: “This track in the wet is really difficult. It’s got a lot of rivers and it’s quite dangerous around here. The one good thing about it being wet is hopefully no grass fires.”
