F1 Qualifying Results 2022 Japanese Grand Prix

Event: Japanese Grand Prix
Track: Suzuka Circuit

Charles Leclerc driving the Ferrari F1-75 at Suzuka

Weather: dry  20.2°C
Tarmac: dry  26.7°C
Humidity : 57%
Wind : 3.0 m/s NW
Pressure: 1014.7 bar

Max Verstappen scored the 18th F1 pole position of his career during the 2022 Japanese Grand Prix qualifying session today. The Red Bull driver will start from P1 for the first time on the Suzuka circuit. It was the 79th pole for Red Bull Racing.

Q1 Session

Home driver Yuki Tsunoda had his first qualifying session around Suzuka. His first lap time was a 1:31.631 min. It was even faster than both Mercedes drivers Lewis Hamilton and George Russell could get out of the W13 on medium compound tyres.

When all drivers had done their first run, it was Max Verstappen who quickest with a 1:30.224 min. Sainz was second on +0.112s, Leclerc was on P3 (+0.178s). Alonso was 4th just like he was in FP3 on +0.379s.

With 5 minutes to go the driver who had to improve their lap time to get into Q2 were: Kevin Magnussen (Haas), Sebastian Vettel (Aston Martin), Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes), Nicholas Latifi (Williams) and Alex Albon (Williams).

After the finish flag had dropped Hamilton had put on a set of soft compound tyres to end up on P11, while Vettel gave it all he got and was able to get into Q2 at last. Both pushed out Pierre Gasly (AlphaTauri) and Lance Stroll (Aston Martin).

Q2 Session

The sun now had come out and both Ferraris gone out first. Sainz came out as quickest in front of his teammate Leclerc and clocked a 1:30.444 min. After all drivers had done their first run, Verstappen turned out to be quickest again with a 1:30.346 min. He was only 0.098s in front of Sainz. Leclerc was third on +0.140s, Ocon was 4th in the Alpine on +0.187s and Daniel Ricciardo showed he still has it being 5th on +0.313s.

The drivers in the drop zone were Lando Norris (McLaren), Vettel, Guanyu Zhou (Alfa Romeo), Mick Schumacher (Haas) and Tsunoda. It was an amazingly close session. The top 13 was within 0.9 sec.

Vettel and Norris made it to Q3 and pushed out Valtteri Bottas (Alfa Romeo) and Daniel Ricciardo (McLaren). Vettel now got into Q3 every GP in Japan during his F1 career. It was the first time since Baku that Vettel made into the top 10.

Q3 Session

The final session was kicked-off by Esteban Ocon. He was the first to put a lap time on the board and clocked a 1:31.106 min. The Alpine driver was nearly 2 sec. slower than Verstappen in the Red Bull who went fastest in the first run and clocked a 1:29.304 min.

After the first run the order was 1. Verstappen, 2. Leclerc (+0.253s), 3. Sainz (+0.398s), 4. Pérez (+0.690s), 5. Alonso (+1.018s), 6. Vettel (+1.250s), 7. Russell (+1.653s), 8. Hamilton (+1.654s), 9. Norris (+1.699s) and 10. Ocon (+1.802s).

In the second run Verstappen didn't improve and made an error coming out of  turn 2 and didn't improve his lap time. The drivers behind him did improve, but not enough to change their position. Only Ocon improved and ended up on P5 and Hamilton improved to P6.

1:27.064 min was the pole position time back in 2019 and was driven by Sebastian Vettel in the Ferrari SF90.

Qualifying Times 2022 Japanese GP

Note - Latifi penalised five grid places for causing a collision at the previous round.

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