F1 Japanese GP preview: Wary of Ferrari’s threat, Verstappen seeks a bounceback (2024)

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SUZUKA, Japan —Carlos Sainz may have won the Australian Grand Prix just two weeks ago, but Red Bull is back in full force at Suzuka after Max Verstappen secured pole position for the Japanese Grand Prix ahead of teammate Sergio Pérez.

Despite lacking the dominance of last year’s display at Suzuka, Verstappen remained in control. The top eight drivers were covered by 0.589 seconds in Q3 and from five different teams, but Red Bull remains the heavy favorite to dominate going into Sunday’s race — even if Verstappen is less certain.

Behind the Red Bull duo, McLaren’s Lando Norris won the close-fought battle to qualify third. Ferrari came down to earth from its Melbourne success as Sainz and Charles Leclerc placed fourth and eighth, while home hero Yuki Tsunoda reached Q3 and qualified P10, outperforming his teammate Daniel Ricciardo once again.

At one of the world’s great race tracks, we’re tracking plenty of storylines going into Sunday’s race. Can Pérez challenge Verstappen? What does the battle for second look like between McLaren, Mercedes and Ferrari? And will the cooler conditions of cherry blossom season change things?

We dive into these and more key storylines ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix, which goes lights out at 1 a.m. EST (6 a.m. BST).

Your 2024 Japanese Grand Prix starting grid 🏁#F1 #JapaneseGP pic.twitter.com/lelAWrb87Z

— Formula 1 (@F1) April 6, 2024

Red Bull faces a ‘question mark’

A mere 0.066 seconds separated Verstappen and Pérez.

For the Mexican driver, it’ll mark his first front-row start since the 2023 Belgian Grand Prix last July, when he qualified P3 and was bumped up by a penalty for Verstappen. As far as a front-row qualifying result, Pérez’s last time was pole position for the 2023 Miami Grand Prix—20 races ago.

Qualifying has been a weak spot for the 34-year-old since that May race, but he said he came close to nailing a perfect lap on Saturday. “Everything was on a margin, it was so easy to lose a tenth or two just be over-pushing a little bit in some of the corners. Everything, the amount of energy that we put into the tires around here is quite high, so it was quite difficult just to get the perfect lap nailed.”

Pérez seems more comfortable in the car compared to last year’s RB19. When he came to Japan last fall, he said nothing seemed to be working. “When you are in that, you just go in circles and circles,” Pérez said Saturday. “In the end, towards the end of the year, we found it was better just to take a step back and don’t try to chase it too much with the setup because then you start compromising other things.”

Confidence and comfort are essential in racing, particularly when you’re chasing one of the best drivers in the sport. Verstappen may have secured pole, but his final lap wasn’t the cleanest.

“I started to lose time from Turn 13 onwards. It’s very sensitive around here with the tires,” the Dutchman said. “As soon as you push maybe a bit too hard in sector one, you run out of tires to the end, and that’s what happened to me on my final lap.”

Looking to Sunday, neither Red Bull driver has been thrilled with their long runs this weekend. Verstappen said, “The pace wasn’t what I would have liked, so there’s a bit of a question mark going into tomorrow because looking at the long runs, especially Ferrari, they look very comfortable. So maybe they were not so quick over one lap today, but they were definitely fast in the long run, so we’ll have to wait and see how that will evolve tomorrow in the race.”

Ferrari doubts a Melbourne repeat is possible

While Verstappen may have talked up Ferrari’s race pace, the mood from the Italian camp was far less optimistic. Its strength in Melbourne could well have been enough to beat Verstappen on merit, but the chance of a repeat performance this weekend seems unlikely.

Leclerc seemed baffled on the radio when he found out the deficit for his sole Q3 lap. This ultimately left him P8—just over a tenth off teammate Sainz, who’ll start four places further ahead on Sunday.

Australia winner Sainz thought victory was out of reach for Ferrari at Suzuka, countering Verstappen’s uncertainty over Red Bull’s race pace. “They always run really, really slow on Fridays, so it looks like we are going to beat them on Sunday, and then we are 20 seconds off,” Sainz said. “They are always super quick on Sundays, and I think they sandbag a bit on the long runs because they know it is their strength.”

Nevertheless, It was a surprise not to see Ferrari up there at the end of Q3, given how quickly the team has been over a single lap lately. The same was true of Mercedes, to some extent, given Lewis Hamilton had talked up the team’s best Friday of the season, only to qualify seventh, two places clear of George Russell in ninth.

It didn’t dampen Hamilton’s mood or his belief that Mercedes has made progress with understanding its troublesome car at Suzuka, a track that would always highlight the W15’s high-speed weaknesses. “I’m just happier with a cleaner qualifying session and a car that I’m starting to feel like I can lean on more,” Hamilton said. That’s a real positive.” He even said it was “the nicest (the car has) felt over the last three years.”

Suzuka is always an excellent circuit for teams to understand where they stand in the pecking order, meaning the fine margins in the battle to be next-best behind Red Bull could be telling on Sunday.

Suzuka shows McLaren’s progress between seasons

During last year’s Japanese GP weekend in September, Oscar Piastri and Norris qualified second and third behind Verstappen but were just over five-tenths of a second off of the Dutchman’s pole position lap. This time around, Norris was only 0.292 seconds behind Verstappen.

“This is the first track we’ve come back to which is where we had our upgrades last season,” Norris said, “so it’s the best comparison of how we’ve improved over the winter. We’re quite a bit closer, so I think that’s a very good sign.”

The McLaren driver added that the car is “exactly the same” as in the first three races. Asked if he feels this is perhaps the best chance he’s had in recent years to beat at least one Red Bull driver, Norris agreed before acknowledging Red Bull’s typical race-day advantage.

“We proved last year when we were much further away from them that we could keep in touch and not be miles behind, so that’s our target for tomorrow,” he said. “But realistically, we’re still too far away to challenge them. They’re too quick for us. Yes, we are quicker in quali, but in the race, normally they pull away a bit more.”

Norris expects McLaren’s race on Sunday to be with the teams behind him. “We have to keep an eye on the mirrors, but at the same time, I want to go forward, and I think we have pace to stay where we are. So that’s my goal.”

The battle of the RB teammates

Whenever Tsunoda appeared on the track, flags began waving in the stands.

The home hero has seemed comfortable all weekend, but during qualifying today, he admitted to F1 TV he “felt a bit of pressure this time” and “struggled with the balance.” He still advanced to Q3 for the third time this year and out-qualified teammate Ricciardo for the fourth time in as many races, albeit by a skinny 0.055 seconds.

The Australian driver said he had “mixed emotions because I think deep down, if we forget the scoreboard, so to speak, I think it was a good session. We didn’t get any dry running yesterday, so we had a few laps this morning to get into it, including a spin, and then obviously quick work to find those few tenths in quali. Yeah, for that, I’m pleased with us being pretty much there.”

The target for RB on Sunday is a points finish. Given how tight the top five teams typically are, those are rarely up for grabs for the bottom five, as evidenced by only RB and Haas having points to their names (six and four, respectively). With Ricciardo lining up behind Tsunoda, RB is in the right position to play with strategy and maximize the team result. Its only points finish this year has come from Tsunoda in Australia, but this is the first time this season both drivers are starting this close to the top 10.

“We’re obviously there on the cusp of points,” Ricciardo said when asked what’s possible for himself on Sunday, “and after a good start, we’ll be in there and not let them go.”

What cooler temperatures mean for the race

Moving Japan from its traditional mid-fall slot to the start of the season was a move widely welcomed by the F1 paddock, easing some of the travel headaches and offering the chance to see Japan in cherry blossom season.

It does have a real impact on track. The race weekend has been cooler and more overcast than usual, making for a change in conditions for the drivers. Given Suzuka is such a high-speed circuit, the demands on the tires are always considerable — Pirelli by default brings its most durable compounds — but the slightly cooler temperatures have helped, particularly over a single lap.

“It gives a nicer time over one lap I think to the tire,” Pérez explained. “Degradation-wise, this place, you put so much energy into the tires that it makes no difference.” Pérez also said the lack of low sun towards the end of each session also helped. “Going into some of those high-speed corners with the sun on your face, it’s hard to really nail.”

Verstappen joked that the cherry blossom trees around Suzuka would also make for better pictures before echoing his teammates’ thoughts.

“There’s always naturally a bit more grip when it’s colder,” Verstappen said. “I think especially on a track like this when it’s very heavy on tires, it’s always a bit nicer like that.”

It could twist the Suzuka races we’ve seen in recent years, especially if rain hits the track. The post-qualifying prediction suggested a 40% chance of rain showers in the race.

(Lead image of Max Verstappen and Yuki Tsunoda flag: Mark Thompson, PHILIP FONG/AFP via Getty Images)