ANALYSIS: How did last chicane decide about the pole position?
Max Verstappen took what is surely one of the greatest of his 41 pole positions to date, with a fantastic final run to set a best time of 1’26”983, a record for this circuit. F1Technical's senior writer writer Balazs Szabo reveals what turned out to be the decisive factor in the nail-biting qualifying session at Suzuka.
Max Verstappen was struggling for outright pace across the practice sessions on Friday and Saturday morning, but he managed to turn his fortunes around for the all-important qualifying session.
Following Friday's practice day, the reigning champion made a series of changes to his RB21, including tweaks to the weight distribution, aerodynamic balance, suspension setup, which has allowed him to take on the fight against the McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri.
The Dutchman delivered a brilliant lap in the closing stages of qualifying, posting a record-breaking time of 1m26.983s tp beat Norris and Piastri by 12 and 44 thousands of a second.
Comparing Norris' and Verstappen quickest lap, they were neck and neck all though the lap around the challenging and daunting Suzuka circuit.
In the first sector, Norris set a 30.358s while Verstappen was fractionally (0.019s) behind. The Dutchman achieved higher top speed (325kph) down the main straight compared Norris (319kph) which was down to McLaren's decision to run a slightly more loaded rear wing.
In Turn 2, Norris' minimum speed was 6 kph faster than what Verstappen achieved, and the Briton was quicker through the daunting esses of Turns 3, 4 and 5. However, the Dutchman exited Turn 5 slightly quicker which enabled him to regain some of the losses he had suffered in the previous three corners.
In Sector 2, Norris was faster by a tiny margin, going 54 thousands quicker than his championship rival from last year. However, Verstappen started the second sector better as he carried an insane amount of speed through Degner 1 which saw him achieve an apex speed of 10kph higher than what Norris managed.
In Degner 2, Norris achieved higher minimum speed, with both drivers taking lots of kerb at the exit. At the subsequent hairpin corner where the rear tyres usually start to overheat, Verstappen carried more speed, but Norris managed to get back on the throttle earlier than his rival.
Norris then carried higher speed into the Spoon corner, and he was earlier on the throttle at the exit of Turn 14 which is crucial given the length of the subsequent full-throttle section. Despite the slight hesitation from Verstappen at the exit of Turn 14, he regained the loss to achieve almost the same top speed thanks to his less loaded rear wing.
While Norris arrived at the last chicane with a slight margin over Verstappen, the Dutchman turned the situation around by braking later into the second-to-last corner.
Despite braking later, Verstappen still managed to hold the racing line and came back on the throttle earlier than Norris which enabled him to go 95 thousands of a second quicker to claim his first pole position since last year's Austrian Grand Prix.
