Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez, the dominant Red Bull combo, hinted that they could have trouble keeping up the pace in Sunday’s Japanese Grand Prix, but Lando Norris dismissed those suggestions.
Perez was only 0.066 seconds slower to nail down the front row spot than Verstappen, who maintained his streak of dominating the first position on the grid thus far this season by taking pole position.
On another Saturday where it was Red Bull who shone, Norris came from a pack of cars all running extremely similar times to seize the lead as best of the rest for McLaren.
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Both drivers were quick to express their dissatisfaction with their slower race speed, even though they secured a one-two in qualifying for the Red Bull team.
After using their race setup in the last practice session before qualifying, Verstappen expressed dissatisfaction, saying, “I haven’t been happy with my long runs so far.” Tomorrow is a little uncertain because the speed wasn’t what I would have like.
“Our race pace is still not too bad, but let’s put it this way—I haven’t felt as comfortable in some of the races this year as I have in some last year.”
In the meantime, Perez expressed the same opinions as his teammate, saying, “Let’s see what we can do tomorrow.”
“Our long run pace doesn’t seem terrific right now, but we’ve made some adjustments, so maybe it will show in our race pace.”
Norris, though, didn’t seem to believe the notion that Red Bull would be having problems on Sundays of any kind.
“Obviously, Max and I started turn one together last year. Regarding his intentions for the race, he stated, “Hopefully trying to redo that.”
However, it’s challenging. They move quickly. They expressed dissatisfaction with their racing pace, but they haven’t run badly in the previous four or five years, so I predict they’ll run well tomorrow.
Naturally, there is a lot of pressure coming from behind, so we need to pay attention to the mirrors. However, I also want to move forward because I believe we have the pace to stay where we are. That is my aim.