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Rosberg snatches dramatic pole position by 0.013s at Suzuka

Nico Rosberg delivered an excellent final lap to snatch pole position from Lewis Hamilton by just 0.013s in a dramatic qualifying session for the Japanese Grand Prix.

Having been quickest throughout every practice session and had 0.4s over Hamilton in both Q1 and Q2, Rosberg found himself slightly adrift of his team-mate after the first runs in the pole position shootout, with Ferrari and Red Bull also within half a second.

AS IT HAPPENED: Japanese Grand Prix - Qualifying

Despite the pressure, Rosberg delivered with his final lap to lower the benchmark to 1:30.647, and although Hamilton improved he fell 0.013s short as pole position at Suzuka continues to evade him. Mercedes calculated the gap as equating to 82cm between its two drivers over a lap. Kimi Raikkonen also produced an impressive time at the end of the session to take third on the grid, 0.3s off Rosberg.

While Sebastian Vettel qualified fourth - 0.079s behind his team-mate - he will start from seventh as a result of his grid penalty for hitting Rosberg at the start in Malaysia. That promotes Max Verstappen to fourth and Daniel Ricciardo to fifth after a close qualifying between Red Bull and Ferrari, while Sergio Perez will also start ahead of Vettel.

Romain Grosjean set an identical lap time to Perez in Q3 but will start from eighth place having been the second of the two to post the time. However it still marks the best qualifying position for Haas this season during a competitive session as team-mate Esteban Gutierrez qualified tenth behind Nico Hulkenberg.

With the two Haas drivers impressing in seventh and eighth - behind Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull - it was left to Force India and Williams to scrap over the final two spots in Q3. It was the Force Indias who advanced as both Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa went early and were bumped down with the final laps.

In another close session, there was remarkable symmetry as the top fourteen cars all went in team order, with Mercedes leading Ferrari, Red Bull, Haas, Force India, Williams and Toro Rosso. Daniil Kvyat got the better of the Toro Rosso battle as team-mate Carlos Sainz spun at Spoon on his final attempt, causing a brief yellow flag which prevented Jolyon Palmer from improving on his Q1 time. Palmer ended the session 16th as a result, one place behind Fernando Alonso.

Jenson Button was the shock elimination in Q1 as Honda had a disappointing qualifying at its home race. The two McLarens ran together on track and Alonso managed to outqualify his team-mate by just 0.032s, which proved crucial as others improved around them. Palmer and Sainz went ahead, with the Toro Rosso in 14th just 0.062s ahead of Button.

Kevin Magnussen failed to follow his Renault team-mate through to Q2 after a mistake in the final chicane, while Marcus Ericsson and Felipe Nasr just managed to get the better of the Manor pair of Esteban Ocon and Pascal Wehrlein, with Ocon 0.021s slower than Nasr as he again outqualified his Manor team-mate for the second race in a row. Wehrlein lost most of his time in the final sector but was already facing a five-place grid penalty for a gearbox change.

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Pos	Driver	Team	Q1	Q2	Q3
01	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:31.858	1:30.714	1:30.647
02	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:32.218	1:31.129	1:30.660
03	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	1:31.674	1:31.406	1:30.949
04	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1:31.659	1:31.227	1:31.028
05	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	1:32.487	1:31.489	1:31.178
06	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull	1:32.538	1:31.719	1:31.240
07	Sergio Perez	Force India	1:32.682	1:32.237	1:31.961
08	Romain Grosjean	Haas	1:32.458	1:32.176	1:31.961
09	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India	1:32.448	1:32.200	1:32.142
10	Esteban Gutierrez	Haas	1:32.620	1:32.155	1:32.547
11	Valtteri Bottas	Williams	1:32.383	1:32.315
12	Felipe Massa	Williams	1:32.562	1:32.380
13	Daniil Kvyat	Toro Rosso	1:32.645	1:32.623
14	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso	1:32.789	1:32.685
15	Fernando Alonso	McLaren	1:32.819	1:32.689
16	Jolyon Palmer	Renault	1:32.796	1:32.807
17	Jenson Button	McLaren	1:32.851
18	Kevin Magnussen	Renault	1:33.023
19	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber	1:33.222
20	Felipe Nasr	Sauber	1:33.332
21	Esteban Ocon	Manor	1:33.353
22	Pascal Wehrlein	Manor	1:33.561

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.