Rosberg takes pole as Kvyat crashes out

F1 Grand Prix, GP Japan, Circuit Suzuka

Nico Rosberg took pole position for the Japanese Grand Prix in a session that was cut short by a voilent shunt by Daniil Kvyat in the closing minute of the session. Kvyat fortunately left his car unharmed.

Under clear skies, qualifying got underway at Suzuka with Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz out on track as soon as the pit light went green. All cars went out initially on the hard tyre, allowing to get to know the conditions without wasting the better tyre compound.

Still, for many it would prove to be enough, with both Mercedes, the Ferraris, both Williams and Ricciardo doing numerous laps on a single stint on the hard tyres.

When drivers got on the medium tyre, Ericsson soon spun off the track, even though he managed to rejoin without problems. It was a bit of an issue for several drivers who were on track at the same time, as the yellow flags hampered progress in the flying laps.

Still, as could be expected, Hamilton and Rosberg continued lapping and edged out the third fastest guy in the session by 1.3 seconds.

2 minutes from the end, Verstappen effectively ended running, as he spun on the exit of the hairpin, leaving his car stuck on track, right on the racing line. This denied the last five improve on their times, leaving Button in 16th, ahead of Ericsson, Nasr, Stevens and Rossi. The latter notably did't effectively set a competitive time, with his best lap nearly 9 seconds off of team mate Will Stevens.

In the second part of qualifying, Nico Rosberg took charge by venturing out on track immediately, closely followed by Hamilton. Both were out on the mediums immediately and set a 1:32.632 and 1:32.789 respectively. When Kvyat crossed the line 20 seconds later, he immediately found himself two seconds down on the Constructur Championship leaders.

Williams are a bit closer, but around 0.7s down on Mercedes and similarly 0.7s ahead of Daniel Ricciardo in the other Renault powered Red Bull. Ferrari were a bit later to set their first times in Q2, but Raikkonen immediately settled for third on his first lap at approximately the same pace as Williams whereas Vettel proved 5 tenths slower than his teammate, reporting his front tyres were letting go towards the end of the lap.

With these times set, it was obvious that both Force Indias, both Lotus, the Toro Rosso's and Fernando Alonso were likely to get eliminated in case they failed to improve.

The final part of qualifying was again kicked off by Nico Rosberg, followed by Ricciardo and Hamilton, all obviously on the medium compound Pirelli tyre. It's also Rosberg who emerged on top after the first laps, albeit just 0.076s ahead of team mate Lewis Hamilton. Williams became the closest challengers and are several tenths closer to the Mercedes than they were in Q2.

The second series of laps soon proved pointless, as Kvyat violently planted his car into the barriers just ahead of the hairpin. A small driver error in which the Russian slightly touched the grass on the outside of the exit of the second Degner badly ruined the Red Bull Racing car, giving his engineers something to do overnight.

That meant Rosberg took pole, thanks to Kvyat and an error from Hamilton on his own flying lap.