Lewis Hamilton took pole position at Suzuka with a mighty run that left his competitors in his wake
Lewis Hamilton took pole position for the Japanese Grand Prix with a mighty run that left his competitors in his wake. His Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas was second, but three-tenths down on Hamilton and will take a five-place grid penalty after taking a replacement gearbox. The British driver’s rival for the world championship, Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel, could manage only third, four tenths down on Hamilton but will start on the front row after Bottas’s penalty. The two Red Bulls of Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen were in fourth and fifth.
Hamilton’s 10th pole of the season takes him to a career total of 71 but is really significant in that it is the first time he has taken the top spot at Suzuka, acknowledged as one of the absolute classic circuits. He has been on pole at the Japanese GP twice before but on both occasions when the race was held at Fuji Speedway in 2007 and 2008. He converted it to a win in 2007 and has previously won twice here for Mercedes in 2014 and 2015, both years he went on to win the world championship.
After struggling in Malaysia, Mercedes had expected to show improvement on the tricky challenge presented by the 3.6-mile circuit that was designed by Honda as a test track and Hamilton proved to be very strong. He had been second to Bottas in the final practice session on Saturday morning and the team had been using the new aero upgrades that were problematic at Sepang but looked to have come into their own on the mix of slow, medium and fast corners of Suzuka. His time of 1m27.319s smashed the lap record of 1.28.954 set by Michael Schumacher in 2006 by a full 1.7-seconds.
After his second place in Malaysia, where Vettel could only manage fourth, Hamilton leads the German by 34 points in the world championship, extending it further on Sunday with only four races remaining would leave Vettel with a mountain to climb in the title fight.
