Lewis Hamilton's fine form continued through to the first day of free practice for the Japanese Grand Prix, the Mercedes driver dominated FP1 and FP2, ending the day four tenths ahead of Valtteri Bottas as Mercedes seem to be in another class yet again.
On the back of his win on Sunday in Russia, Hamilton is hunting a fifth F1 victory in Japan and got his weekend off to to the best start possible as he powered around the daunting race track in best lap time of 1:28.217 in the 90-minute afternoon session.
His effort was four tenths up on his teammate Valtteri Bottas in second, and a whopping eight tenths better than fellow title contender Sebastian Vettel in the Ferrari. The Reds are either keeping their powder dry or, like a week ago at Sochi, have no answer to their silver rivals.
Max Verstappen wrung everything he could out of his Red Bull, but was still a full second shy of the top time. A couple of tenths further down was Daniel Ricciardo in sixth, a quarter of a second down on his teammate.
Kimi Raikkonen, in fifth, split the Red Bulls on the timing screens, the Finn nearly half a second shy of Vettel in the sister car.
A massive 1.8 seconds off the benchmark pace was, Best of the Rest, Force India's Esteban Ocon in seventh. He was four tenths up on eighth-placed Romain Grosjean in the Haas.
Marcus Ericcson was ninth in the Sauber, with Brendon Hartley rounding out the top ten in the Toro Rosso with the latest spec engine by Honda doing the business on day one at the track the Japanese automotive giant own, on a weekend in which they are title sponsor of the grand prix.
The battle for the foot of the timesheets was sadly between McLaren and Williams.
Fernando Alonso fastest of the quartet in 17th was a huge 2,7 seconds down on the best time, with Williams duo Sergey Sirotkin and Lance Stroll in 18th and 19th respectively and Stoffel Vandoorne slowest of all in the second McLaren.
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