Alpine's Jack Doohan suffered a high-speed crash as Friday practice at the Japanese Grand Prix was punctuated by four red-flag stoppages. The Australian was uninjured in the crash, which initial impressions suggested was caused by the DRS overtaking aid still being open as he entered the 160mph first corner. Alpine have not commented on the cause of the incident, saying they are "assessing" it. Doohan's was the first of four incidents that led to the session being stopped, two of which were for the grass catching fire beside the track. McLaren's Oscar Piastri ended up fastest from team-mate Lando Norris.
The second stoppage was caused when Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso spun off and became beached in the gravel at Degner One, shortly after the session was restarted following a 20-minute delay to repair the damage to the barriers at Turn One. And a few minutes after the session was resumed, the cars had to return to the pits when the grass caught fire between Dunlop and Degner One. That left only seven minutes of running at the end of the session, but it was stopped after six when a bigger patch of grass caught fire on the run down to Spoon Curve.
The series of stoppages left it impossible to draw any serious conclusions about relative pace, although it remains clear that McLaren are the team to beat. On an unusually cold day of only 13C, all the drivers mentioned the strong north-westerly winds as making life difficult on a circuit with so many long, fast corners. Norris said: "We're still in a good position, it's tricky just because of the wind. Wind makes a big difference, especially on a circuit like this when it's so quick. "You're on such a fine limit for a long time in the first sector, the tiniest bit of wind can upset the car a lot. I still feel good, like we're in a reasonable place." Frenchman Isack Hadjar continued to impress for Racing Bulls with third fastest time on his first visit to Suzuka, considered one of the most demanding circuits on the calendar. His team-mate Liam Lawson, who was demoted from the Red Bull team after just two races before this event, was fifth fastest behind Lewis Hamilton's Ferrari. Mercedes' George Russell was sixth fastest, from the second Ferrari of Charles Leclerc. Russell said: "A pretty positive day for us, the car has been handling really nicely and I've been pretty pleased with that. We've got to make sure it stays the same for tomorrow. "It is really windy out there and tomorrow the wind is going to shift 180 degrees so that is going to really change how the car is feeling but I am confident we can be in the mix for fighting for the front two rows." Max Verstappen was eighth, complaining of understeer in his Red Bull, with Pierre Gasly's Alpine and the Williams of Carlos Sainz completing the top 10.
Yuki Tsunoda impressed in the first session, topped by Norris, after his move up to Red Bull in place of Lawson, with sixth fastest time just 0.107 seconds slower than team-mate Verstappen. The Japanese was only 18th in the second session, and did not complete a representative lap on the soft tyres. Tsunoda said: "P1 was better than expected. Good start for myself and P2 didn't even set a lap time. Lots of work to do. Maybe slightly struggled. So far overall it's OK, just have to build up the confidence more." He said the car felt "a little bit more different than I expected" out on track compared with the simulator, which he tried last week, and was "feeling a bit more tricky". Verstappen said: "Today has been quite difficult for me, trying a lot of different things with the car but it seems like a lot of things are not really clicking at the moment, quite difficult to put the lap down.
"You need a lot of confidence and commitment around here and at the moment I don't feel I can use that so we still have a bit of work to do."
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