Red Bull driver Max Verstappen was fastest In qualifying, with the top three drivers covered by just six-hundredths of a second, having used the P Zero Red soft tyre from start to finish. The same tactic was used by all the teams, with the exception of Mercedes, which ran the P Zero Yellow medium in Q1.

Conditions remained dry all day, with qualifying getting underway at 3pm in 21 degrees centigrade ambient and 23 degrees of track temperature.

Verstappen also went fastest in the hour-long FP3 session this morning, setting fastest time on the soft tyre. With FP3 being the first time that the teams had run the slick compounds, they concentrated on maximising their learning and collecting as much data as possible in a variety of configurations, including long runs.

With yesterday having been declared wet, the teams were entitled to a carry-over set of slick tyres for FP3, before handing them back as per the regulations. This gave the opportunity for extra running.

We learned today that the degradation on the soft and medium tyres seems higher than expected, while the performance gap between them is less than the estimation. We saw no graining.

The Pirelli Pole Position Award was given to Verstappen by Robert Reid, the current FIA Deputy President for Sport and 2001 World Rally Champion co-driver. Reid, who won his title alongside the late Richard Burns on Pirelli tyres, is closely linked to Japanese motorsport, having competed for manufacturers like Mitsubishi and notably Subaru - with whom he claimed his world championship 21 years ago. In his former role, Reid has also been involved in developing young rally drivers through the Pirelli Star Driver scheme - organised in collaboration with the FIA - and he is additionally a previous winner of the Pirelli International Rally in his native United Kingdom: a round of the British Rally Championship based near Pirelli's facility in Carlisle.

With just one hour of free practice this morning, the teams are lacking dry data for the 53-lap Japanese Grand Prix. The fastest strategy on paper is a two-stopper using the soft and medium tyres: probably with the medium used once during the middle stint. Soft followed by two medium stints is another viable two-stopper, for those with two mediums left.

A one-stopper could be possible as well, depending on degradation rates. This could be soft to P Zero White hard, or medium to hard - which is slightly slower on paper but requires less management. What's clear is that all three compounds have a valid role to play tomorrow and a wide variety of strategies are theoretically possible.

The weather and track conditions on Sunday will ultimately decide the way to go. Track temperatures are expected to be a bit cooler than today and there's a still a chance of rain.

This might favour the softer compounds - while the wet running yesterday could turn out to be extremely useful as well.

Check out our Saturday gallery from Suzuka here.

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by Superbird70, 08/10/2022 18:32

"To quote anyone right now, 'I just want transparency.'."

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2. Posted by Editor, 08/10/2022 14:38

"@ Superbird70

"Where are the Qualifying team notes Red Bull Racing Honda F1? Smacks of censorship," you ask.

Indeed, it does "smack of censorship".

As I posted in the thread relating to Toto Wolff insisting that the budget cap breach is not the work of a moment...

The last press release we received from Red Bull was on 8 August and related to the team extending its technical support programme with Honda until 2025.

Prior to that, in May, Red Bull had changed its sender domain for press releases and advised us to update our address book accordingly, which we did.

Following the summer break, with no emails received we contacted Red Bull and they said they would sort things out. Nothing happened.

We wrote again and gave them an alternative email address. Again nothing happened.

Consequently we no longer receive Red Bull's press releases.

Concerned that the cost of updating their address book could impact their budget we opted not to make an issue of it."

"

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3. Posted by Superbird70, 08/10/2022 14:17

"Where are the Qualifying team notes Red Bull Racing Honda F1? Smacks of censorship.
"

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Japanese GP: Qualifying team notes - Pirelli

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