Verstappen qualified for pole at Suzuka with a lap more than half a second faster than his nearest rival in Q3, while Hamilton had to settle for seventh on the grid.
Lewis Hamilton admitted he cannot understand why Red Bull still has such a performance advantage after Max Verstappen won pole at the Japanese Grand Prix.
After a bad run in Singapore, Saturday proved that things are back to normal for Red Bull this weekend. Verstappen was more than half a second faster than Oscar Piastri, who was well ahead of the Dutchman.
But it was an even more unpleasant day for Hamilton. He qualified seventh with teammate George Russell one place behind him, with both Mercedes cars beaten by the Red Bulls, Ferraris and McLarens.
Hamilton’s fastest time was more than 1 second slower than Verstappen’s pole lap. And the level of disparity at this stage of the season has the seven-time world champion worried.
He told reporters:
“As a team we really needed that when we went back and presented the problem – I hope the team realized this – but the second gap was huge. And it’s true. After two years and still a second behind the Red Bulls, this is not a good performance and we need to make sure we work hard over the winter to regain at least half of that gap before next year.
“We have a very sharp car. It’s like trying to balance a knife on its head. It’s never perfectly balanced, one way or the other. You try to bring it’s as close as possible from the middle, but that’s very difficult to do.” every weekend.
In a separate interview, he went further to say that his team needs to rethink its car concept before 2024. “Yesterday the balance wasn’t very good, we made some changes and some things worked well overnight, and overall the car felt very good today. It was nice to finish in P3, so I feel a lot more confident,” he said. speak.
“Then in qualifying I tried my best, but the seven-tenths deficit we had in the first sector was all to the rear. Our car had a lot of load on the front and not much like we need in the back.
“So we’re very far away from that point and it’s 100% clear to me that it’s a [concept car problem] and we need to make sure we change that over the next year , which we hope to do.”
Lando Norris qualified third behind McLaren teammate Piastri and ahead of Charles Leclerc in fourth. The Ferrari driver was briefly investigated for not following the race director’s instructions, but was quickly cleared of any wrongdoing.