In the first three blog articles I posted I seem to have already chosen a theme. All three times I’ve mentioned Fernando Alonso, and now I’ll be mentioning Sauber twice in a row. This week’s mentions are a result of the great improvement both teams have made over last year’s efforts in qualifying at the Japanese Grand Prix.
Quali Recap
Red Bull has looked dominant in all sessions we’ve had so far, with both drivers first and second in FP1 and FP3, and now unsurprisingly topping out qualifying as well. Who took P1 was never in question, with the only question being whether a Ferrari, Aston Martin, or McLaren would topple Checo for P2. That obviously didn’t happen.
I was surprised by the margin of Max’s victory. 66 thousandths (0.066 seconds) is closer than the Mexican has been to his teammate in a long time — the last time Checo out-qualified Max was Miami 2023 by my calculations.
McLaren seems the second quickest car on track, with Oscar Piastri saying as much, despite only qualifying P6. He blamed himself for a poor performance compared to Lando Norris’ P3.
That’s the best that I can do, honestly. I don’t get it.
Charles Leclerc
Leclerc wasn’t overly happy with his result, in P8, getting outqualified by his teammate and putting the Ferrari drivers on level pegging for qualifying efforts.
Following Leclerc, neither Mercedes driver was pleased (this seems to be a theme!). Hamilton lamented the 5 tenths gap to Verstappen which only ended up growing, and Russell’s qualifying misery was capped with a €5000 fine to Mercedes for an unsafe release.
Further down the grid, Tsunoda is four for four on out-qualifying Ricciardo, and has now made his third Q3 session in a row. I can only wish him well in the race — everyone loves to see a Japanese driver do well in Japan.
| Position | Driver | Team | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | VERSTAPPEN | RED BULL | 1:28.197 |
| 2 | PEREZ | RED BULL | 1:28.263 |
| 3 | NORRIS | MCLAREN | 1:28.489 |
| 4 | SAINZ | FERRARI | 1:28.682 |
| 5 | ALONSO | ASTON MARTIN | 1:28.686 |
| 6 | PIASTRI | MCLAREN | 1:28.760 |
| 7 | HAMILTON | MERCEDES | 1:28.766 |
| 8 | LECLERC | FERRARI | 1:28.786 |
| 9 | RUSSELL | MERCEDES | 1:29.008 |
| 10 | TSUNODA | RB | 1:29.413 |
| 11 | RICCIARDO | RB | 1:29.472 |
| 12 | HULKENBERG | HAAS | 1:29.494 |
| 13 | BOTTAS | KICK SAUBER | 1:29.593 |
| 14 | ALBON | WILLIAMS | 1:29.714 |
| 15 | OCON | ALPINE | 1:29.816 |
| 16 | STROLL | ASTON MARTIN | 1:30.024 |
| 17 | GASLY | ALPINE | 1:30.119 |
| 18 | MAGNUSSEN | HAAS | 1:30.131 |
| 19 | SARGEANT | WILLIAMS | 1:30.139 |
| 20 | ZHOU | KICK SAUBER | 1:30.143 |
Stroll had an awful qualifying, his message of a lack of confidence in the car being completely the opposite to Fernando’s surprise at how good the car was. Hulkenberg and Bottas had good laps, placing P12 and P13, while their teammates languish in P18 and P20.
So, how does this compare to last year? Well, I took the fastest laps of each team from both years and found the difference.
This year’s Japanese Grand Prix is a lot earlier in the year, but the temperatures both years have been roughly the same, and the same tyres are being used — the C1, C2, and C3 compounds, the hardest in the range. So, pretty much all of the time gained by the cars has been due to upgrades, rather than condition changes.
All teams have gained at least 6 tenths over last year, with Aston Martin the clear winner and Sauber following. Alonso managed to give a lap time almost 1.9 seconds quicker than last year, saying that his Aston Martin’s upgrades brought more pace than expected. What a change this marks from last year where every Aston Martin upgrade seemed to put them further back. For this race, they’ve brought a new floor as well as changes to the rear wing and beam wing.[1] These were fitted to Alonso’s car today, and Stroll’s yesterday.
However, Fernando doesn’t expect to be able to stay in P5 during the race, something which his status as the most overtaken driver this season seems to back up, having been overtaken 11 times.
Bottas delivered one 1.46 seconds quicker. Sauber was also the only team to get through to an additional qualifying session — both drivers were knocked out in Q1 last year, while Valterri got up to the giddy heights of P13.
Surprisingly, Red Bull has improved by the least year-on-year. Last year, Verstappen had pole by almost 6 tenths, while today he has it by 6 hundredths, though with three tenths to the nearest non-Red Bull. Max admitted that the lap wasn’t the best on his cool down lap, but with most other drivers saying the same I’m not sure I can blame this lack of improvement on a botched lap. Red Bull, however, have upgrades for this race as well. It seems they’ve changed the way their cooling works — there are no longer cooling openings on the side of the car, as well as some small aerodynamic elements behind the halo and underneath the mirrors.[2]
Let’s compare now Max’s lap this year to his lap from last year, and see where his improvement was made. I would look at Bottas or Alonso, but the simple answer is “everywhere”, so the pole-sitter will have to do as a year-on-year comparison.
Pretty much all of the time gain is in the second half of the lap, with 2023 Max and 2024 Max trading lap time back and forth in the first half. In fact, last year’s Max Verstappen was ahead of this year’s lap by the time both cars got to the hairpin (turn 11). It was here, though that Max made up laptime over last year, being able to accelerate out sooner and so he had a higher speed for the entire straight up until Spoon curve, gaining time that entire way.
On the exit of Spoon (turn 14) he gained another load of time, though this fell away as last year’s car reached a higher top speed on the run to through 130R and towards the Casio triangle. Finally, earlier acceleration out of that chicane gains him another handful of tenths.
What do these corners have in common? Well, the hairpin and the final chicane are both low-speed corners, with Spoon being a relatively difficult traction zone. Perhaps the time gained in this specific half of the track represents a set-up change? I’m no Red Bull insider, so sadly I can only speculate.
I can only compare it Max’s lap times in Australia 2023 and 2024, where most of his time gained was due to having a higher speed down the straights. In Bahrain 2023 vs. 2024, like Suzuka, the time appears to be coming out of slow speed corners, so perhaps we can conclude that the RB-20 is better in the traction zones than the RB-19 was. This, ultimately is only speculation.
Well, that’s a whole load of conjecture out of the way. We can only hope for an interesting race tomorrow. I’ll be honest, I doubt it. My predictions are that Alonso is going to fall through the order, but beyond that the top order doesn’t change. Who knows, maybe I jinxed it?
Data Drive with Max 
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