SUZUKA, JAPAN: Four-time world champion Max Verstappen smashed the track record to snatch pole position for Sunday’s Japanese Grand Prix ahead of McLaren’s Lando Norris, as Yuki Tsunoda qualified a lowly 15th in his Red Bull debut. Verstappen clocked a blistering lap of 1min 26.983sec in his Red Bull, 0.012sec ahead of championship leader Norris, with McLaren’s Oscar Piastri third. Verstappen set a new Suzuka track record with his final lap in Saturday’s qualifying, pipping Norris right at the death. “Each session we kept making little improvements, then the last lap was flat out,” said Verstappen, who has won the Japanese GP for the last three years. “In a Formula One car around here is insane. This is a proper highlight for us to be back on pole here.” It was Verstappen’s first pole position of the season. The Dutchman is still looking for his first grand prix win of the new campaign. Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was fourth ahead of Mercedes’ George Russell, with Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli sixth and RB’s Isack Hadjar seventh. Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton was eighth, followed by Williams’s Alex Albon and Haas’s Oliver Bearman. Norris is looking for his second grand prix win of the season, after triumphing in the season opener in Australia. He finished second behind Piastri in China a fortnight ago in a dominant start to the campaign for McLaren. “I’m happy, congrats to Max, he did a good job,” said Norris. “You have to credit something when it is a lap that good that he must have done.
