Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel accepted that Mercedes were back to their best at Suzuka after the respective fortunes of the two rivals reversed from Singapore.
Just seven days after ending Mercedes' 15-month stranglehold on pole position on the streets of Marina Bay, Ferrari found themselves in more familiar Saturday territory as the world champions locked out the front row while they were left in a battle with Williams for the second row.
Vettel, who was also pipped by Valtteri Bottas to third, qualified 0.6 seconds adrift of pole, and admitted it was in the range of Ferrari's usual single-lap deficit to Mercedes before the unexpected events of last weekend.
"It has been between three tenths and eight, nine tenths the whole season. Some tracks you feel a bit more comfortable, others you don't. Some tracks have been coming a bit more your way, others are not. But overall it's a representative gap," the four-time world champion said.
"I don't know if they had any margin [to improve in Q3 without the red flag], we had a bit, so you can argue about a couple of tenths. But the bottom line is they are back to their competitiveness we've, unfortunately, seen all year."
Vettel, a four-time winner at Suzuka, trailed team-mate Kimi Raikkonen through the first two stages of qualifying before moving ahead in what turned out to be the sole runs in Q3.
"It was a bit tricky. I didn't get into the rhythm straight away. I was fairly happy with Q1 and then Q2 I was happy with my first run on the medium tyres. In Q3 the car did come alive and I was a lot happier and the lap time was competitive," he explained.
"There was maybe one more position to gain with Bottas in third, but we didn't have the last run. Anyway, it was fairly close between Williams, ourselves, and the Red Bulls as well."
Indeed, the German suspects Ferrari will also be battling those two teams in the race, rather than taking on Mercedes.
"Tomorrow they [Mercedes]'ll be the ones to beat, quite clearly, but we will try everything we can," he said. "Maybe we are a bit closer, but for sure our main rivals should be Williams and Red Bull.
"Williams are not so easy to pass - if we are quicker we have a chance. The chances we will get is the start, the way down to Turn One is not that long but you never know. After that with strategy you can try some things, so I think it will be close tomorrow."
Raikkonen, meanwhile, was left to bemoan his luck again after the Daniil Kvyat-triggered red flag ensured his "average" opening Q3 time counted for the grid and he ended up sixth behind the other Williams of Felipe Massa.
"In the end it was quite disappointing. We had good speed all the way through apart from an average first run in last qualifying. Then there was the red flag, so it was a bit of a s*** end result but it is what it is," the Finn admitted.
"The car was pretty good. There was just the one average lap and ended up costing us a lot. But the car behaviour has been pretty fine and now it's a bit unknown for the race because nobody had time for any long running. But we should be fine."
Vettel goes into Sunday's race 49 points adrift of world championship leader Lewis Hamilton, who starts second on the grid behind Nico Rosberg.