This session has finished. No further updates will be posted.
Well that was an eventful session to say the least. Here’s our report and do join us again tomorrow for final practice and qualifying.
The red flags are out yet again with just a few seconds remaining in the session. It’s a second grass fire.
Verstappen is only eighth in the times. “It’s like I have no front end at all. Understeering everywhere,” he reports.
Piastri improves the best time to a 1’28.114 which puts him just under five hundredths of a second ahead of Norris.
We’ve got a third red flag, and this time it’s because some of the grass at the track’s edge is burning – has it been ignited by sparks from one of the cars?
Piastri goes second and we briefly have the top six covered by a tenth of a second. But Norris spoils it – he goes quickest by over a third of a second.
Almost every driver opts for soft tyres and Isack Hadjar pulls off a terrific lap to go fastest, 0.026s ahead of Hamilton, who has Lawson just 0.015s behind him
The session has resumed again with 19 minutes to go and there’s real urgency as the drivers head back out, George Russell overtaking Lewis Hamilton on the grass and then Max Verstappen as well.
That interfered with the qualifying simulations of a few drivers, notably Yuki Tsunoda, who will have taken a bit of life out of his tyres with that.
He’s switched his car off and climbed out. Replays shows Alonso just strayed onto the grass on the way in which unsettled the car.
Red flag again – Fernando Alonso has understeered off at Degner one and got stuck in the gravel.
Other drivers are still queueing to get out – Charles Leclerc passes a rival in the pit lane exit as he joins the track.
Lando Norris leads the field out as the session resumes just over 20 minutes after that brutal hit for Doohan at turn one.
The session is due to resume at 3:30pm local time, which is around five minutes from now, once barrier repairs have been completed.
Replays suggest Doohan may not have deactivated his DRS as he turned into the corner. It has to be cancelled manually as drivers often don’t brake heading into turn one.
Doohan of course did not take part in the first practice session as Alpine decided, in only his fourth grand prix weekend, to replace him with Ryo Hirakawa for the first hour of running.
Red flag: Jack Doohan has crashed at the first corner. The car just snapped around on him on the way in. “I don’t know what happened,” he says.
Carlos Sainz Jnr heads back in immediately: “Something is wrong with the car, it’s bouncing like crazy through turn 13, check the rear.
The pit exit light is green and the first cars are heading out.
Haas is another team to keep an eye on in this session. They’ve brought an updated floor to address some of the high-speed handling problems they encountered in Melbourne and team principal Ayao Komatsu said the early signs were encouraging after first practice.
Yuki Tsunoda had a promising first run for Red Bull earlier on. A crucial early barometer will be how he compares to team mate Max Verstappen in the qualifying simulations which teams usually do in second practice.
Lando Norris set the pace in the opening session but once again there wasn’t much to separate the front-running teams. The McLaren driver was concerned about graining he experienced on his longer medium tyre run towards the end of the session.
Second practice for the 2025 Japanese Grand Prix is coming up next.
2025 Japanese Grand Prix
- Lawson and Hadjar could spring qualifying surprises: Friday practice data
- 2025 Japanese Grand Prix practice in pictures
- FIA taking steps to prevent repeat of grass fires which disrupted practice
- Hamilton and Stroll handed formal warnings for queue-jumping in pit lane
- Red Bull feels “a bit more tricky” than it did in the simulator – Tsunoda
