Japanese Grand Prix: Qualifying Recap

It was a tale of mixed fortunes in Q1 as Ocon graduated into the next phase of knockout qualifying in P14 while Bearman’s session ended early down in P18. Both drivers ran two new sets of Pirelli P Zero Red softs on their VF-26s – Ocon’s fastest time came on set two, the Frenchman producing a 1:30.915 to advance. Bearman’s best was also produced on his second set of fresh softs – the Brit clocking a 1:31.090 lap.

Ocon once again utilized two new sets of soft tires in Q2. A first hot lap of 1:30.466 was clocked before Ocon subsequently bettered it in the final minute with a 1:30.309 tour – good for P12 just behind the Red Bull of Max Verstappen but shy of a spot in Q3 – with only the top 10 progressing to the fight for pole.

Mercedes locked out the front row of the grid with Kimi Antonelli (1:28.778) claiming pole position ahead of teammate George Russell (1:29.076).

Ollie Bearman:

"In the first run, we had a switch issue on the car and we lost time on the straights. On run two, I didn’t find any pace, so I need to understand whether there was still a small issue with the car or if it was fixed, but there are very tight margins out there and it wasn’t enough to get through today. It’s a shame about qualifying, but there’s still going to be plenty of opportunities in the race, I’m optimistic. If it was 12 months ago, I’d be much less so, however there’s going to be a lot of overtaking."

Esteban Ocon:

"I'm pretty happy with the job that we've done on our side, I think it's pretty positive the way that we've built through the weekend and the way the car felt around the lap. That last lap was pretty solid, there wasn't much more in there, but we’ve a little bit more to work on. I think overall we did the maximum we could today and it's been a while since that happened so I'm pretty pleased that we've managed to do that. Hopefully we'll have a good start tomorrow, the aim is to move forwards and navigate ourselves into the points."

Ayao Komatsu, Team Principal:

"A bit of a disappointing qualifying because we had one car out in Q1 and the other car couldn't quite make it into Q3. The margin was tighter than we expected it to be, I feel like we should have had both cars in Q2 for sure. I feel like we definitely left some performance on the table with Ollie in Q1, so that’s disappointing. In Q2, I think in today's condition, that was as close to the maximum as we had. Both drivers were happier yesterday in terms of the car performance, so we need to understand why we lost it. It's mainly on the higher speed section, the low speed looks pretty good. Looking ahead to tomorrow, I think we just need to focus on our good parts – which is the race start and strong long-run pace from FP1 and FP2. We’re still trying to get Esteban from P12 to the points, but even with Ollie from P18, I think anything can happen. It's still pretty early in the season with the brand-new regulations so we'll try to have a clean execution tomorrow."