Sebastian Vettel may be on pole position but the 12th time this season, however, the German says qualifying in Japan was anything but easy.
The Red Bull driver suffered a rather innocuous accident at the end of Friday's first practice, putting his RB7 nose first in the barriers, damaging the front wing.
And although he was on track for the bulk on Friday's second session, the German says the shunt did put him on the back foot for the remaining practice sessions.
However, there was no sign of that in qualifying when, in the final seconds, Vettel took pole position off Jenson Button by 0.009s.
"To be honest yesterday - obviously I went off in free practice and damaged the wing - it wasn't ideal in the afternoon to prepare the car for today," Vettel said.
"We suffered a bit this morning in particular where we were kind of coming back regarding car balance but we were too slow.
"We sat down after the practice session this morning and fortunately got everything together, and we were able to get everything - every single bit - out of the car in qualifying, which was crucial.
"There's not much between Jenson Button and myself. It was a tough qualifying but I enjoyed it a lot."
The 24-year-old heads into Sunday's 53-lap Japanese GP needing just one point to wrap up this year's World title. However, he is still insisting he's not focusing on the Championship.
"Regarding the point, or no point, I am not really focusing on it; I had a lesson yesterday, when I didn't make a big mistake but, just for a little moment, I was not 100 percent focused and lost the car."
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