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Russell goes top with a 1’29.616, seven-hundredths up on Verstappen, still running the medium rubber.

Only Red Bull are running the softs. Liam Lawson improves his time on the hards in the Racing Bulls, going 1.3s off Verstappen and seven-tenths off his new team mate Isack Hadjar on the same rubber.

Tsunoda is a second off Verstappen so far, also on the soft rubber.

George Russell does a 1’29.406, almost matching Verstappen, albeit on the medium rubber rather than the softs.

Verstappen lowers his best to a 1’29.690 which is three-tenths of a second quicker than the best time from this session last year. The track has been resurfaced through the first sector and is clearly giving good grip.

We’ve got a mix of all three different compounds for these first runs. Max Verstappen opts for a set of softs and immediately hits the top of the times in his white Red Bull, well over a second ahead of Lewis Hamilton in his Ferrari.

First practice has begun at a bright and sunny Suzuka. The track fills up quickly with most drivers heading out.

The third change is at Alpine who have taken the curious decision to run Ryo Hirakawa for this session. The 30-year-old WEC champion and Le Mans 24 Hours winner is certainly qualified but what’s strange about this is Alpine have not benched the more experienced Pierre Gasly for this session but Jack Doohan, who is only in is fourth grand prix weekend and surely would have benefited more from the track time here.

We have three changes to the driver line-up for this session. The first two have attracted a lot of attention – Yuki Tsunoda has moved into the second Red Bull seat alongside Max Verstappen, while Liam Lawson has been sent back to Racing Bulls. It’ll be harder than usual to tell Red Bull’s two teams apart as well, as the senior team is running a special white and red livery in tribute to Honda this weekend.

The first practice session for the 2025 Japanese Grand Prix is coming up next.

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