SUZUKA, Japan — “That. Is. Insane. That is insane!”
Max Verstappen’s engineer, Gianpiero Lambiase, rarely sounds as impressed as he did on the radio when his driver’s pole position for the Japanese Grand Prix was confirmed.
He had been through this routine 40 times before, congratulating Verstappen after a job well done.
But this pole, the 41st of Verstappen’s career, felt particularly special. After Red Bull’s struggles to make Verstappen fully comfortable with the RB21 car, prompting an array of setup experiments to try to get some answers at Suzuka, plus the domination of McLaren in the early part of this season, to grab pole in this fashion was a shock. The lap was also a new track record at Suzuka.
Verstappen’s exuberant reaction on the radio summed up his surprise. “Yes, guys!” he cheered in reply to Lambiase. “Wow, what a lap.”
He had already seen his name pop up in P1 on the TV screen after crossing the line, but with provisional pole-sitter Oscar Piastri still to complete his lap, it was no sure thing. Piastri fell four-hundredths short, leaving him third on the grid behind Verstappen and McLaren teammate Lando Norris, who was a mere 0.012 seconds off pole.
Never a fan of comparison, Verstappen said in a news conference after qualifying that it was “difficult” to put this down as his best F1 pole position. “If you look at how our season started, even during this weekend, it’s very unexpected,” Verstappen said, conceding: “That makes it probably a very special one.”
Max Verstappen on track during qualifying ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix (Clive Mason/Getty Images)
Few would disagree. Twelve months ago, Verstappen’s dominant charge to pole and victory at Suzuka prompted Mercedes boss Toto Wolff to write off the rest of the season, believing the Dutchman had already won the championship in a Red Bull car that seemed perfect.
The picture has changed so much in F1 since then. Verstappen is now the underdog against Norris and Piastri in the superior McLaren, Red Bull having since slipped back in the pecking order. It merely makes his gifts behind the wheel shine even more on a day like this.
“That was one of the laps of his career,” Red Bull team boss Christian Horner said on F1 TV after the session. “That was outstanding.”
Two-time world champion Fernando Alonso was blown away watching Verstappen’s lap between his post-qualifying interviews in the media pen. “The lap he did is only down to him,” Alonso told reporters. “The car is clearly not at the level to fight for pole or even the top five. But he manages to do magical laps and magical weekends.
“At the moment, he’s the best, the reference for all of us. We need to keep improving to reach that level.”
Verstappen had to give it his all on the final lap in Q3. He had trailed the McLaren cars all weekend long at Suzuka, a circuit where he has not been beaten in either qualifying or the race in six years.
Red Bull kept trying everything with the car setup to find some answers and improve the balance so he had the required confidence for a track as fast and unforgiving as Suzuka, tweaking the weight distribution, aerodynamic balances, wing levels, roll bars and suspension springs. No stone was left unturned.
It still wasn’t enough to leave Verstappen totally at ease. He admitted after qualifying that the balance of the car was still not entirely to his liking despite taking pole. But entering the final run in Q3, trailing Piastri by two-tenths of a second, Verstappen knew he had to give it everything.
“I had a lot of fun out there, being fully committed everywhere,” Verstappen said. “Some places, I was not sure if I was actually going to keep it (on the track) or not.”
The first gamble came at the first corner, the long right-hander where the speed carried through sets a driver up for the esses to follow. Verstappen carried as much as 25 km/h more speed through the corner, hoping to set himself up for a quicker exit. It gained him a hundredth of a second on his previous lap, but by the time he had exited the esses, Verstappen was a few thousandths of a second slower than before. There was more time to find.
He didn’t lift off through Dunlop, the long left-hander, as on the previous lap, setting him up for the Degners, the consecutive right-hander corners that loop the track under the crossover. On the previous lap, he had braked for the first Degner at Turn 8 and kept the throttle up a bit. Not this time. A bigger lift but no touch at all of the brake pedal was the quicker way in, gaining him half a tenth.
Next came the hairpin, the slow speed corner where Verstappen braked ever so slightly later, keeping his speed up to grab another half a tenth in the process, before the flat-out sweep through to Spoon. The corner is one of the trickiest on the track, lasting several seconds before setting drivers up for the back straight. Getting the line right is tough, but Verstappen braked later and longer than the previous lap before another gentle application on the downhill dip to exit. The extra 6-7 km/h he took through the corner again added up to another chunk of time gain.
Max Verstappen (L) Alongside McLaren Duo Lando Norris (C) and Oscar Plastri. (Mohd Rasfan/AFP via Getty Images)
Verstappen identified all these corners as being where he felt the most risk was taken on his pole lap. “Those places it was like, well, I hope it’s gonna stick,” he said.
But it was at the final chicane, the Casio Triangle, where Verstappen really made the difference. Horner admitted the section “hadn’t been our strongest point this weekend”, but Verstappen produced some more magic to find the time. A moment later on the brakes meant he could get heavier on the throttle exiting the first right-hand turn before another lift to slow it down for the switchback left. As the car worked to get away from him, Verstappen kept it under complete control before getting back on the gas and sweeping to the line.
The lap was enough for pole position by just 0.012 seconds. If he got any one of those corners wrong or missed out on any of those gains, he would likely have dropped behind both McLarens, dramatically changing his outlook for the race at a track where overtaking is difficult.
Instead, Verstappen will again lead the field away from pole position at Suzuka. The threat of rain overnight — which would be welcomed to wet the grass and stop another blaze — could complicate things, but with Verstappen driving like this, it’s hard to see anything stopping him.
The smile on his face after qualifying summed up just how rewarding the pole was to Verstappen at one of his favorite tracks. When a reporter asked him to explain the sensation of nailing a lap around Suzuka, Verstappen replied: “If you want to drive the car, I can give it a go. I think you’re gonna poop your pants.” (He then glanced at the FIA’s media delegate to ask if he could say that, a reference to last year’s hoo-hah over him swearing in a press conference.)
Saturday was a reminder, if we needed it, of just what Verstappen can do. The four-time world champion may not have the quickest car this year. But once again for Red Bull, he has been the difference-maker.
The ultimate driver on the ultimate driver’s track, delivering a lap that will live long in the memory of Verstappen’s hugely successful F1 career.
(Top photo: Mark Thompson/Getty Images)