QUALIFYING

LEWIS HAMILTON PULLS OFF STUNNING QUALIFYING performances with phenomenal regularity, and the effort that bagged him his 71st career pole position in F1 was right up there.

Malaysia required some dig-deep heroism in a difficult car, but also depended on Sebastian Vettel’s engine breaking and a bit of typical Kimi Raikkonen underperformance at the vital moment. Japan was a case of Hamilton utterly crushing the opposition in a car finally doing what it was supposed to.

He was quickest in all phases of the session, as he claimed his first pole at Suzuka, obliterating Michael Schumacher’s qualifying lap record from 2006 (by 1.635 seconds) in the process.

Hamilton was more than four tenths clear of Vettel after the first runs in Q3 and lowered his own benchmark by a couple of hundredths to confirm pole.

“It is incredible for me, my first pole position here, so ninth time lucky, I am grateful for that,” said Hamilton. “Every single time I’ve struggled here – struggled with finding the right balance, generally not starting on the right foot, and if I have started on the right foot, I’ve gone in the wrong direction. It’s always been up and down.

“This is the first car I felt has been underneath me all weekend, [just] small tweaks here and there in the right direction, and ultimately a good job done. It’s a real confidence boost to our group.” Vettel’s Ferrari was provisionally second fastest after the first Q3 runs, but a small improvement at the end was not enough to stay there, as Hamilton’s Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas sneaked ahead by 0.140s. Vettel was not too concerned, knowing Bottas faced a five-place penalty for a gearbox change.

“In the last run in Q3 I tried a bit more than there was,”

Vettel explained. “Valtteri wasn’t a threat, so I took a bit more risk, but it didn’t work.”

Bottas, who almost crashed at the second Degner in Q1 after shunting at Spoon in final practice, pulled it together when it mattered, but was still three tenths off Hamilton.

“The guys did a great job getting the car back together,” said Bottas. “My driving was really getting better through qualifying.

“It’s been a tricky weekend, not quite so clean, and going slightly over a kerb in practice three can make a massive difference. I had to reset, go for it. I used the soft tyre in Q2, so that mixed up my rhythm slightly. The lap in the end was not perfect, but not that far off.”

Red Bull had been within half a second of pole in Malaysia, but was almost a second off in Japan. Daniel Ricciardo ran less downforce than Max Verstappen but they qualified just 0.026s apart, and Ricciardo said the gap to pole was around 0.5s bigger than expected.

“It was the best we could do with what we had,” he said. “Mercedes do perform better on cooler surfaces. Their car’s no donkey.”

It certainly wasn’t at Suzuka, and it was unstoppable in Hamilton’s hands.

“It’s incredible, my first pole position here, I am grateful” Lewis Hamilton