‘You pay the price’ – Russell rues Qualifying tyre gamble as Antonelli admits to having ‘very little confidence’ in Japan

The Mercedes duo of George Russell and Kimi Antonelli may have qualified next to each other in P5 and P6 at Suzuka, but their respective reactions differed greatly as the Briton was left questioning what could have been.

Russell appeared to be firmly in the mix for pole position across the weekend in Japan and was the closest competitor to McLaren more often than not, leaving the battle for top spot seemingly a three-horse race.

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But Max Verstappen’s magnificent lap in Q3 saw him claim his first pole of the year whilst the Mercedes driver fell out of contention down in fifth place, finishing the session behind Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri and Charles Leclerc.

The 27-year-old was left frustrated by his lowest Qualifying performance of the season so far, especially in a field where the frontrunners are separated by such small margins – the top three drivers covered just 0.044s.

“I’m pretty disappointed with the last lap, to be honest,” Russell said. “I tried something different with the tyres, tried to get them a bit cooler to be better at the end of the lap, and ultimately we went too far and had no grip at the beginning of the lap.

“You pay the price. P5 isn’t terrible but I would have liked to have been higher up. Anything can happen tomorrow.

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“You can probably see another Melbourne-like race potentially. As I said, disappointed now but P5… we can fight from there.”

It was a different story for his young team mate Antonelli, who emerged from the session pleasantly surprised by his performance. In contrast to Russell, the Italian had never driven at Suzuka before this weekend and struggled to establish himself in the top 10 throughout the free practice sessions.

He turned it around when it mattered to qualify in sixth place, ultimately just over two-tenths adrift of Russell.

Antonelli explained: “I’m not going to lie – I was quite lost and had very little confidence heading to Qualifying. Definitely was not an easy one but I’m happy with how I progressed and I think I maximised the result.

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“FP1 went actually quite well, but then FP2 and FP3 were a step back. On my side, I couldn’t build the confidence I wanted and I arrived in Qualifying a bit uncertain on what I could have achieved.

"I was happy to get in Q3 and to put a decent lap at the end, but of course still a lot of work to do.”