Oscar Piastri bounced back after a subdued start to the Japanese Grand Prix and went fastest in the second practice session that featured Red flags four times.
Piastri was only 15th at the end of FP1 but was able to top the second session with a lap time of 1:28.114, only 0.049s ahead of teammate Lando Norris who was second fastest.
The session was cut short by four Red flags brought out by Jack Doohan crashing, then Fernando Alonso getting stuck in the gravel. The final two times the session was stopped was due to grass catching fire at Turns 8 and 13.
That meant the teams did not get the running they would've hoped for which sets the stage for an interesting Saturday at Suzuka.
Isack Hadjar was third fastest for the Racing Bulls, 0.404s off the pace and 0.026s ahead of seven-time Formula 1 Champion, Lewis Hamilton, who was fourth fastest in the Ferrari.
Liam Lawson had a much better session and was fifth fastest in the other VCARB, 0.041s slower than Hadjar.
George Russell was sixth fastest in the Mercedes, ahead of Charles Leclerc who was seventh in the second Ferrari while Max Verstappen was eighth fastest, the Dutchman just managing a handful of laps over the course of the 60-minute session.
Pierre Gasly was ninth fastest in the Alpine while Carlos Sainz was tenth and one more time faster than teammate Alex Albon who was 11th, less the two tenths separating the Williams drivers.
Yuki Tsunoda was 18th on his second outing with Red Bull Racing, the Japanese also managing four laps as the session was truncated due to the Red flags.
Buildup towards FP2
The first practice session for the 2025 Japanese Grand Prix was drama free, despite some off-road moments for some drivers, but there were no interruptions.
The focus was naturally on Tsunoda and Lawson who started their new jobs this weekend, the former making a promising start and Red Bull Racing who appear to be bending over to accommodate their new driver.
Red Bull Christian Horner told Sky Sports F1 that the team will give Tsunoda a different setup to Verstappen; a setup that doesn't target ultimate performance.
"I think we have to provide a different setup," Horner said. "Max's ability to extract lap time from the car is unique. And I think that we haven't seen another driver able to do that in the way that the Max is able to.
"And so therefore, I think you need to give almost a calmer car to whoever is the partner driver, to give a more settled and predictable feel.
"That's not necessarily the quickest car, but it is definitely a more confidence inspiring car for whichever driver," he concluded.
Which begs the question: Was the same done for Lawson?
But let's move forward and head into FP2. Can Norris maintain the advantage he showed earlier today? What of Mercedes and Ferrari? Will Verstappen drag his RB21 into the mix again?
FP2 Session Highlights
The clear conditions continued into FP2 but so did the wind as the second 60 minutes of practice started with track temperatures at 35 degrees Celsius, while the ambient temperature was a chilly 13 degrees.
The drivers made their way out on track and soon Sainz reported that there was "something wrong" with his car that was "bouncing like crazy" in Turn 13.
Less than ten minutes into the session, Doohan lost control of his Alpine going into Turn 1 and ended up in the barriers at the end of the gravel trap.
It appears the DRS remained open as Doohan committed to the corner and kept his foot down too late. The DRS closes automatically when you lift and hit the brakes. Entry into Turn 1 is flat out and the he did not manually deactivate the DRS.
Thankfully, the Aussie was out of the car on his own. The car was totally destroyed from the left side and the session was Red flagged.
Doohan was perplexed by the accident, he radioed: "What happened?"
The session was resumed with 30 minutes remaining on the clock. It was a long Red flag period as the marshals had to repair the considerable damage to the barriers.
Just after four minutes, the session was Red flagged again and this time due to Alonso getting beached at the exit of Turn 8 (Degner 1).
The Spaniard was on a qualifying run on Soft tyres and appeared to put one tyre on the grass and lost control of his AMR25.
The session was shortly resumed, with less than 20 minutes on the clock, but was soon Red flagged again as the grass caught fire at Turn 8.
The session was resumed with seven minutes remaining and drivers lined up at the pitlane exit to try and get some last minute running after what has been a useless session.
Russell has a mini race with Leclerc on the outlap, but couldn't get passed and had a small moment when he lost his car behind the Ferrari. No broken carbon fiber there...
Replay showed Leclerc taking too much kerb at Turn 16 ruining his final effort on the Softs.
Verstappen reported his car felt like it had no front end and that he was understeering everywhere.
In the final seconds of the session, the Red flag came out again as the grass caught fire again, this time at Turn 13.
As a result, the cars returned back to the pits straight away with no practice starts allowed.
Japanese Grand Prix FP2 Classification
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