Rosberg edges Hamilton for pole by 0.013s

F1 Grand Prix, GP Japan, Circuit Suzuka

Nico Rosberg has taken pole position for the Japanese Grand Prix, but only after facing stiffer competition from his team mate than he had had so far this weekend. Kimi Raikkonen will start from third on the grid, alongside Verstappen.

Qualifying was kicked off by both Manor racing drivers, with Ocon taking the honours of going out first.

It wasn't long before most others followed, and it was only Ferrari who held back a bit, and opted to set a time around the halfway point of the first part of qualifying. When they eventually did, they topped the timed by two tenths on Rosberg. That was partially thanks to them using the soft tyres, and both Mercedes and both Red Bull cars opted to do two flying laps on the mediums.

In the closing stages of Q1, it was obvious that the McLaren Hondas lacked the pace to really shine at this track. Despite their improvements on the second outing, both McLarens were topped by Williams, Haas and Renault's Jolyon Palmer, dropping Alonso to 16th, narrowly through to Q2 while Button was out in 17th.

In Q2, everybody went out on the soft tyre compound, with Palmer actually opting to do his first run on used soft tyres, resulting in a time that was 1.5s slower than the slowest already on the timing sheet.

With Rosberg again on top, 4 tenths ahead of his team mate at the time, Williams opted to sit out the first part of the session, and go for a single attempt for both its cars at the very end of the session. It eventually turned out to be a risky strategy, with both cars eliminated as the session ended.

One minute from the end, Carlos Sainz spun his car at Spoon, but only caused a brief enough yellow flag to not intervene with the lapping of anybody else. It did however mean for him that he was unable to improve on his second outing, seeing Kvyat jump ahead of him on the timing sheet.

On the first outings in Q3 it was Hamilton who went fastest, topping his team mate for the first time this weekend. Nico Rosberg was 2 tenths down, following by four very closely matched Ferraris and Red Bulls, all between 4 and 5 tenths down on Hamilton.

The second outings brought another set of improvements with all but Ricciardo managing to improve on their earlier times. Rosberg though found the biggest improvement and managed to take pole by 0.013s. Kimi Raikkonen improved to third while Verstappen will start from 4th as Vettel will drop 3 places in accordance with his grid penalty incurred for his first corner collision at last week's Malaysian Grand Prix.