FP2: Piastri heads Norris in incident-filled short second practice in Suzuka
Having led the field in the opening practice, McLaren continued to have the upper hand in the second one-hour practice session at the Japanese Grand Prix, with Oscar Piastri pipping his team-mate Lando Norris in what turned out to be a massively shortened practice. F1Technical's lead journalist Balazs Szabo reports on Free Practice 2.
McLaren's Lando Norris did not look comfortable in his McLaren in the opening pratice session at Suzuka, but he still managed to set the benchmark in FP1.
The second practice saw the Woking-based set the benchmark once again, with Oscar Piastri fractionally beating his team-mate Lando Norris. However, the second session turned into a heavily-interrupted practice, with several incidents of different nature hindering drivers during FP2.
The majority of the field was not even able to complete the first flying laps before Jack Doohan suffered a high-speed crash. The Australian sat out the opening practice, having handed his Alpine over to Ryo Hirakawa, but his day was limited to just a few kilometers as he suffered a high-speed crash at Turn 1 less than 10 minutes into FP2.
The incident brought out the red flags, and while Doohan managed to climb out of his car unaided, the incident left behind significant debris as well as damage to the barriers, leading to a lengthy recovery operation by the marshals.
With only 30 minutes left on the clock, drivers were able to head back out on to the track, but just a few minutes later, Fernando Alonso found himself beached with his Aston Martin at Turn 8. The replays showed that the incident was the result of his mistake as his simply went wide after dipping a wheel on the grass.
With 20 minutes left on the clock, drivers headed back on to the track, with most of them opting for Pirelli's red-walled soft tyres. However, action came to a brief halt for a third time due to a small fire at the side of the track. Although things got going again, the session was red-flagged with just a couple of minutes left on the clock due to a second small fire.
Racing Bulls' Isack Hadjar ended up third quickest while his new team-mate Liam Lawson took fifth to complete a strong Friday for the Faenza-based outfit.
Ferrari drivers Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc took fourth and seventh respectively, but neither of them were able to complete their quickest lap due to the interruptions which suggests that there is more to come from the Scuderia.
Having left a very strong impression in the opening practice, Mercedes driver George Russell set the sixth quickest time while his team-mate Kimi Antonelli found himself down in P16.
Reigning champion Max Verstappen only completed nine laps, with his quickest one enough for eighth spot on the leaderboard. Having joined the Dutchman for this weekend, Yuki Tsunoda ended up down in P18. However, his low-key performance was down to the interruptions, rather than to his lack of pace as he displayed encouraging performance in the opening practice.
