Oscar Piastri kept McLaren on top of the times at Suzuka after no fewer than four red flags disrupted the second hour of running.
The first stoppage was caused by an enormous crash for Jack Doohan at turn one. His Alpine snapped around as he turned into the 265kph corner, then made heavy contact with the barrier on the outside.
Doohan climbed out of his car and appeared to be largely unhurt. His A525 was heavily damaged, however, as was the barrier, and the session was interrupted for over 20 minutes while the crash scene was made safe.
When the session resumed, it was only for a few minutes, as Fernando Alonso soon skidded off at Degner One and got stuck in the gravel trap. The Aston Martin driver touched the grass on the way into the corner, sending him wide.
That stoppage was bad news for Yuki Tsunoda, who was the first driver from the front-running teams to embark on a qualifying simulation. He had to abort his run on the soft tyres which left him an unrepresentative 18th in the final times.
After Alonso’s car was recovered and the session restarted once more, most drivers pounced on the opportunity to get flying laps in. The Racing Bulls pair showed remarkable pace, Isack Hadjar briefly topping the times. At this point the leading six cars were covered by less than a tenth of a second.
Lando Norris put a stop to that, however, lapping over three tenths of a second faster. Soon afterwards more red flags put a stop to the session, this time due to a grass fire near the approach to Degner One. It appeared a shower of sparks from a passing car had ignited the dry patch of turf.
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Following the third restart Piastri beat his team mate’s time by less than five hundredths of a second to complete a McLaren one-two. However Liam Lawson backed his team mate up in fifth place, the Racing Bulls duo split by Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari.
Max Verstappen was the quickest of the two Red Bull drivers in a lowly eighth place, over half a second off the pace, with George Russell and Charles Leclerc separating him from the top five. “It’s like I have no front end at all,” he told race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase. “Understeering everywhere.”
Pierre Gasly gave Alpine some cheer following Doohan’s crash by setting the ninth-fastest time. Carlos Sainz Jnr, who pitted early in the session after reporting severe bouncing in his Williams, ended up 10th.
As the final seconds of the session ticked down the red flags appeared for a fourth time. This was again due to a trackside fire, which appeared to spread with alarming speed, and will give the organisers cause for concern for the rest of the weekend.
2025 Japanese Grand Prix Grand Prix second practice result
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