Max Verstappen’s performance in the Japanese Grand Prix qualifying left Lewis Hamilton speechless.

Hamilton was forced to settle for seventh place on the grid as Verstappen took pole position at Suzuka with a lap that was more than half a second quicker than his closest competitor in Q3.

Max Verstappen easily won pole for the Japanese Grand Prix, and Lewis Hamilton admitted he finds it incomprehensible that Red Bull maintains such a significant performance advantage.

This weekend, Red Bull is back to business as usual after a slump in Singapore.
Oscar Piastri qualified a long way behind Verstappen, trailing by more than half a second.

However, Hamilton had a more difficult day. He and teammate George Russell qualified seventh and eighth, respectively; the Red Bull, Ferrari, and McLaren cars were all faster than their Mercedes counterparts.

Verstappen’s pole lap beat Hamilton’s fastest time by more than a second.
The seven-time world champion is worried about the size of that gap at this point in the season.

He told reporters, “We, as a team, really need to when we go back and do the debrief – I hope the team already realizes – but a second gap is huge.
It is also actual.
It is not a good performance to be two years in and still be behind the Red Bulls by a second, so we must work hard over the winter to close at least half of the gap before the following season.

“Our vehicle is very peaky. It is comparable to attempting to balance a knife on its tip.
It is always slightly out of balance; there is never a neutral position.
It is very challenging to do every weekend, but you try to get it as close to the middle as you can.
“.

He even said that his team needs to rethink its car concept before 2024 in a different interview.
“The balance wasn’t feeling great yesterday, but we made some good changes and worked hard overnight, and today the car has felt really great overall.
I’ve been feeling much more assured since driving through P3, he said.

“Then, in qualifying, I gave it everything, but that seven-tenths deficit we have in sector one is all in the back.”. Our car has more weight in the front than the rear, which is where we need it.

We need to make sure we change that for next year, which hopefully we will do.
“So we’re a really long way down on that, and for me, it’s 100% clear that’s [a car concept issue].
“.

Behind teammate Piastri of McLaren and in front of Charles Leclerc, who qualified fourth, was Lando Norris. The Ferrari driver was briefly under investigation for failing to adhere to the race director’s instructions, but any wrongdoing was quickly found to be unfounded.