Japan – Free Practice 2: Bottas and Mercedes Strike Again, Verstappen Comes In-Between

In trouble during the recent timed sessions, Mercedes set things straight. On a circuit favoring high downforce, the Silver Arrows clearly dominated the practice sessions.

During the second session, Lewis Hamilton struck first in the first half-hour with a time of 1:27.896, 478 milliseconds ahead of his teammate Valtteri Bottas. The Finnish driver spun at the start of his first flying lap, ruining a set of tires. Behind the Mercedes, Ferrari halved its gap compared to the first session. Vettel, in third, completed a lap less than half a second behind, ahead of Leclerc and Verstappen.

The second attempt allowed Valtteri Bottas to get ahead of Hamilton by one-tenth, with a time of 1:27.785. Max Verstappen came in third. The Red Bull driver clocked a time less than three-tenths behind Hamilton. His teammate Alex Albon slotted in between the two Ferraris, six-tenths off the pace.

While time seemed frozen halfway through the session, Ferrari attempted a final timed lap. Charles Leclerc improved his time and took fourth place ahead of Vettel and Albon.

The best of the others was once again Carlos Sainz Jr., seventh in his McLaren, 1.266 seconds from Bottas. Renault could do no better than 17th and 18th, only ahead of the Williams.

On the French side, Romain Grosjean finished the session thirteenth with his Haas, a little more than two-tenths ahead of his teammate Kevin Magnussen. Pierre Gasly, absent from the first session (replaced by Yamamoto), set a nice time at the very end of the session to move from 17th to 9th place, two-tenths ahead of Daniil Kvyat, his teammate at Toro Rosso. He is nevertheless the big loser from the cancellation of Saturday’s day, as he only had one practice session during the weekend.

Apart from the last five minutes, the hunt for lap times stopped after the first half of the session. The teams then tested race stints. Especially Ferrari, which prepared the car more for the race than its competitors. The team observed that in race trim, medium tires are about two seconds slower than the softs, compared to a six-tenths difference in qualifying trim. The qualifying will take place on a “fresh” track as the typhoon will have completely washed it on Saturday.

The qualifications should take place at 3 a.m. on Sunday, French time. In case of cancellation due to bad weather conditions, the times from free practice 2 will be used to determine the grid.