Saturday at Suzuka rewards Red Bull: Verstappen and Perez on the front row

(Cover picture: Oracle Red Bull Racing)

The qualifying for the Japanese Grand Prix is on the books, offering us a Red Bull front row lock-out which - despite last year's dominance - has been missing for quite a while. The gap with the rival teams, however, didn't appear as large as one might expect... If we add to this the struggles that the two RB20s encountered in race pace simulation, all this lights up the hopes of those who want a hard fought race tomorrow!

Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

As always, here's the final classification of this qualifying session; then, let's analyze what happened:

Red Bull quickest on Saturday, but Ferrari gets ready fo fight on Sunday...

The progress of the Suzuka weekend so far, if we exclude the less than indicative FP2, had shown very different behaviour between Red Bull and its rivals, especially Ferrari and McLaren: if on the one hand the car of the English-Austrian team was immediately on point in the qualifying simulation (and then in the actual qualifying), on the other hand when the tank was filled to carry out the usual long runs, we witnessed a sudden plot twist.

Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

On the other hand, the two Ferraris of Sainz and Leclerc behaved in exactly the opposite way: huge difficulties in immediately getting the tyres up to temperature (as demonstrated by the never truly competitive split times in the first sector of each qualifying lap), and a situation that was absolutely more stable in race pace conditions. Indeed, there were moments in the long runs of the two teams mentioned in which Leclerc was one second per lap faster than Verstappen: net of the fuel effect, it's interesting to reiterate how the situation was reversed compared to the laps with an empty tank.

Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

From this perspective, McLaren can be seen as somewhere in between Red Bull and Ferrari, more towards the former than the latter. If you consider, in fact, that the laptime that earned Norris third position sees him less than three tenths from the pole laptime of Max Verstappen, you can understand that in Woking they have almost nothing to complain about when analyzing their Saturday.

We say "almost" because in reality Oscar Piastri will start the race in sixth position, but had he managed to improve by less than a tenth of a second in his last attempt in Q3, he could have overtaken Fernando Alonso's Aston Martin (P5, at +0.489 s) and the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz (P4, at +0.485 s) in one fell swoop.

Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

Therefore evaluating the grid positions from a wider perspective, we can say that the fourth place from which Sainz will start is a good starting point: if he manages to keep his position at the end of the first lap, he'll be able to make the most of his SF-24's race pace that we talked about earlier.

Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

The one who will be able to count a little less on this strength is Leclerc (P8, at +0.589 s), who experienced a truly complicated qualifying... Of course, the same thing as Oscar Piastri applies to him too, but in his case the reason why he has a lot to complain about is the strategy adopted during Q1. In my opinion, in fact, the Ferrari pitwall could have been a little more daring in avoiding a second time attack attempt with new Soft tyres; having instead decided not to take any risks, Charles found himself having to face Q2 and Q3 with only two new sets of Soft compound, decidedly a bit too few to try to reach the limit on a difficult track like Suzuka. All these considerations, however, must take into account a fact: in Japan, as well as two weeks ago in Australia, Sainz is finding himself more at ease than Leclerc at the wheel of the SF-24!

From a race perspective, it will be fundamental for Leclerc to get rid of at least a couple of the opponents ahead of him in the very first laps: only achieving so he'll be able to fuel his podium ambitions, which otherwise could easily be mortified by the traffic in which he'll find himself. Having said this, however, it must be remembered that the first corners of the Japanese track lend themselves to race incidents at the start, so Leclerc - like everyone around him - will also have to be a bit more careful than usual...

Tsunoda once again in the top 10 in qualifying: what a start to the season for the home hero!

The last of the positions assigned in Q3 goes to Yuki Tsunoda (P10, at +1.1216 s), who in his home Grand Prix allows himself the "luxury" of facing the big names on almost equal terms: his closest rival (George Russell, in P9 at +0.811 s) is about four tenths ahead, so it would have been difficult to expect more from the RB driver!

Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

In any case, it's worth remembering that - with the exception of the season opening qualifying in Bahrain, where Yuki classified in P11 - the Japanese driver has always achieved the top ten, and this is a result that certifies a season start above the rosiest expectations... In fact, the performance level of the teams at the moment sees the top 5 (Red Bull, Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes, Aston Martin) with a technical advantage that in theory wouldn't allow anybody else to consistently access Q3: once again, seeing that Tsunoda got there on 3 out of 4 occasions certainly deserves an honorable mention.

Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

The downside is represented by the driver who, despite having a quick car at his disposal, was unable to do better than P16: we are talking about Lance Stroll, who with a sensational elimination in Q1 wasted for the umpteenth time the potential of the his Aston Martin. His gap (in Q1, on equal terms) with teammate Fernando Alonso exceeds eight tenths, way too much for the Canadian to be satisfied with his Saturday.

Verstappen is the favorite ahead of the 53-lap race at Suzuka, but race win is not a given!

The prospects for tomorrow's race see Max Verstappen as the favourite, both because of the pole position from which he will start and for the presence behind him of his teammate Sergio Perez: in short, in normal race conditions, the odds that Red Bull can work as a team to secure the race win are high, but from here to say that Ferrari and McLaren won't be able to give them a hard time, well, it seems a bit risky to make such a prediction!

Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

As mentioned, a lot will depend on how the positions will settle after the first laps; from then on, the number one threat for the World Champion - in the writer's opinion - will be the winner of the last Australian GP, Carlos Sainz.

Anyway, the race will start tomorrow morning at 7.00 CET. With the premises of the eve there's reason to wake up early, but if we're here talking about Formula 1 in the name of a common passion, there's certainly no need to convince you to do so!

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