The first two practice sessions of the Japanese F1 GP continue to show the dominance of McLaren, with Lando Norris setting the best time in the first session and Alexis Piastri in the second. Ferrari’s step up and Mercedes’ continued crouching in search of unsettling the leaders. Alonso improves but ends up in the gravel and Sainz continues to rise. There was hardly any driving in free practice two, where there were four red flags.
McLaren dominates
McLaren has started the weekend at Suzuka maintaining the dominance they demonstrated in the first two races, where they set the fastest time in both sessions. In the first session Lando Norris was the fastest, setting a time of 1:28.549, one and a half tenths of a second ahead of Russell, second in the Mercedes, and with Piastri far behind in fifteenth position.
However, the New Zealander set the fastest time in the second session, with a time of 1:28.114, followed by Lando Norris 49 thousandths of a second behind him. McLaren’s superiority continues to be the predominant feature of the F1 World Championship and, for the moment, both drivers will be the ones vying for the Drivers’ World Championship, although there is still a long way to go in the Championship to draw conclusions about possible winners, but for the moment it looks like only the friction that may be created between them can cause disaster in the team, because the others are not yet rivals.
Ferrari steps up to the plate
Leclerc and Hamilton seem to be trying to get their act together to put Ferrari in the top positions: in free practice 1 they were third and fourth (the Monegasque driver above), and in free practice 2, Hamilton achieved the fourth fastest time, ahead of Leclerc’s seventh.
Russell keeps Mercedes in the race
George Russell continues to show a good level with a Mercedes that still has room for improvement, managing to be second in the first session, and sixth in the short free practice 2. Antonelli has had more complications, where he has paid for the difficulty of the circuit, but hopefully he will be higher up in the rankings tomorrow.
Doubts with the Spaniards
Fernando Alonso and Carlos Sainz leave us with mixed feelings. The Spaniard managed to finish seventh in free practice 1, very close to the best in the first session. However, he was hardly able to drive in the second session, as he went off into the gravel when he had only completed two full laps. It remains to be seen whether it was human error or a DRS failure, as it did not close at the start of the corner.
For his part, Carlos Sainz is still getting used to his Williams and managed to finish tenth in both sessions, but ahead of Albon in both, something he had not yet achieved in either of the first two grands prix. However, it does not look like Williams will be up there at the front over the weekend.
Lawson and Tsunoda
Everything surrounding Red Bull is the most interesting part of the weekend. Yuki Tsunoda made his home debut with Red Bull, and in the first free practice he surprised everyone with the best sixth place, just one tenth behind Max Verstappen (who was fifth) – a great start for the Japanese driver who lagged far behind in the second session, in eighteenth position.
For his part, Lawson returned to the Racing Bulls and has reason to smile, as he set the thirteenth fastest time in free practice 1 and a surprising fifth place in free practice 2. We will see if Red Bull has made the right decisions with this guy, who had a bad start, but was not given time to prove anything.