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Lewis Hamilton will be desperately hoping to grab his first pole position of 2022 at the end of today’s qualifying session at Suzuka, with Max Verstappen able to wrap up this year’s Drivers’ Championship title if everything falls into place for him over the course of Sunday’s race. The Dutchman needs to outscore Charles Leclerc by eight points and Sergio Perez by six points in order to clinch the end-of-season honours with four races to spare after dominating proceedings for the vast majority of the campaign to date.
Verstappen may need to pull out all the stops in order to prevent Hamilton or George Russell from claiming pole position, though, with Mercedes having looked quick in the wet during FP2 on Friday after making a number of setup changes following the end of FP1. However, the Brit was quick to play down his team’s hopes of beating Red Bull at Suzuka, with the Silver Arrows having completed much of their running on fresher tyres than their Constructors’ Championship rivals.
“Looking to tomorrow [Saturday], I don’t really know what to expect,” Hamilton told Sky Sports F1.
“I really have no idea, if we get it dry I imagine the Ferraris and Red Bulls will be quick but I really, really have no idea. I hope that we are fast but that is a hope that continues to be the case each week.
“On the positive side, we were able to switch our tyres on today so we didn’t look slow, so that’s good.”
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