Formula One World Championship leader Nico Rosberg snuck in to steal the Japanese Grand Prix pole from Mercedes team mate Lewis Hamilton by just 0.013s. Rosberg claimed his third consecutive Suzuka pole position with a time of 1:30.647.

Ferrari outperformed their Red Bull championship rivals to claim the third and fourth spots on the grid. Kimi Raikkonen finished ahead of team mate Sebastian Vettel. The German will start from P7 following the 3 place grid penalty he received for causing a collision with Rosberg at Turn 1 of the Malaysian Grand Prix.

Verstappen finished fifth fastest for Red Bull but makes his way up to P4 with thanks to Vettel. Team mate and Malaysian Grand Prix winner Daniel Ricciardo will start the race behind him.

Sergio Perez will start sixth for Force India with Romain Grosjean putting in his best qualifying performance of the season to start 8th. For the first time both Haas F1 cars made it through to the Top 10 with Esteban Gutierrez lining up 10th behind Nico Hulkenberg.

The Williams F1 team sent both of their drivers out for just a single run in Q2 and saw neither Valtteri Bottas nor Felipe Massa make it through to Q3. They will start 11th and 12th respectively.

Daniil Kvyat managed to take P13 ahead of his Toro Rosso team mate Carlos Sainz. Fernando Alonso will line up in 15th following a torrid qualifying session for the McLaren Honda team. Jenson Button could not even make it out of Q1.

Jolyon Palmer pushed his Renault through to Q2 and will start from 16th on the grid. Kevin Magnussen, Marcos Ericsson, Felipe Nasr start ahead of Esteban Ocon and Pascal Wehrlein who will take up the back row of the grid for the Manor Racing team.

Join us on Twitter @F1_Madness for live commentary and some chit chat throughout tomorrow’s Japanese Grand Prix. It’s a very close race between the Ferrari and Red Bull teams setting the scene for what should be a smashing race at Suzuka.

Japanese Grand Prix qualifying classification