Japanese F1 GP: Piastri fastest as Doohan suffers huge…

Oscar Piastri was fastest in second practice at the Japanese Grand Prix as four red flags led to a truncated session.

After Lando Norris led the way in the morning, McLaren team-mate Piastri had the upper hand later in the day as his time of 1m28.114s was 0.048s faster than Norris.

Four red flags led to plenty of running time being lost, the first of which occurred following a huge accident for Alpine rookie Jack Doohan.

With all the talk about the Red Bull stable swapping Liam Lawson and Yuki Tsunoda, it was Racing Bulls’ Isack Hadjar who got closest to the McLaren duo although a number of runners did not set a competitive time on the soft tyre.

After the session resumed following Doohan’s shunt at Turn 1, a spin for Fernando Alonso also caused a red flag and it would return twice more before the end of the hour as scorched areas of grass at the side of the track needed extinguishing.

Carlos Sainz reported an early issue in his Williams but things were much worse for Doohan moments later.

Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin Racing crash (Photo by: Rudy Carezzevoli / Motorsport Images)

Having skipped FP1 for Alpine reserve driver Ryo Hirakawa, Doohan completed just four laps before a big shunt into the barriers at Turn 1 – the Australian walking away having climbed out of his wrecked car.

The session resumed with just half of the time remaining but another red flag was caused by Alonso spinning off into the gravel.

When two more red flags were required late on due to separate instances of burning grass, it was Piastri who had set the benchmark time.

Local hero Tsunoda impressed on his Red Bull debut, getting to within a tenth of a second of new team-mate Max Verstappen in FP1, but the delays meant the Japanese driver did not set a representative FP2 time on the fastest soft rubber.

Lewis Hamilton was fourth for Ferrari ahead of Lawson, while George Russell, Charles Leclerc, Verstappen, Pierre Gasly and Sainz rounded out the top 10.

F1 Japanese GP - FP2 results

1 - 2
Cla	Driver	#	Chassis	Engine	Laps	Time	Interval	Tyres	km/h
1	O. Piastri McLaren	81	McLaren	Mercedes	13	1'28.114		S	237.251
2	L. Norris McLaren	4	McLaren	Mercedes	12	+0.049 1'28.163	0.049	S	237.119
3	I. Hadjar Racing Bulls	6	RB	Honda	12	+0.404 1'28.518	0.355	S	236.168
4	L. Hamilton Ferrari	44	Ferrari	Ferrari	14	+0.430 1'28.544	0.026	S	236.099
5	L. Lawson Racing Bulls	30	RB	Honda	13	+0.445 1'28.559	0.015	S	236.059
6	G. Russell Mercedes	63	Mercedes	Mercedes	13	+0.453 1'28.567	0.008	S	236.038
7	C. Leclerc Ferrari	16	Ferrari	Ferrari	14	+0.472 1'28.586	0.019	S	235.987
8	M. Verstappen Red Bull Racing	1	Red Bull	Red Bull	9	+0.556 1'28.670	0.084	S	235.764
9	P. Gasly Alpine	10	Alpine	Renault	13	+0.643 1'28.757	0.087	S	235.532
10	C. Sainz Williams	55	Williams	Mercedes	9	+0.718 1'28.832	0.075	S	235.334
11	A. Albon Williams	23	Williams	Mercedes	11	+0.909 1'29.023	0.191	S	234.829
12	N. Hulkenberg Sauber	27	Sauber	Ferrari	12	+0.948 1'29.062	0.039	S	234.726
13	G. Bortoleto Sauber	5	Sauber	Ferrari	13	+1.221 1'29.335	0.273	S	234.009
14	E. Ocon Haas F1 Team	31	Haas	Ferrari	13	+1.393 1'29.507	0.172	S	233.559
15	O. Bearman Haas F1 Team	87	Haas	Ferrari	10	+1.540 1'29.654	0.147	M	233.176
16	A. Antonelli Mercedes	12	Mercedes	Mercedes	13	+1.619 1'29.733	0.079	S	232.971
17	F. Alonso Aston Martin Racing	14	Aston Martin	Mercedes	5	+1.864 1'29.978	0.245	M	232.336
18	Y. Tsunoda Red Bull Racing	22	Red Bull	Red Bull	12	+2.511 1'30.625	0.647	M	230.678
19	L. Stroll Aston Martin Racing	18	Aston Martin	Mercedes	12	+2.731 1'30.845	0.220	M	230.119
20	J. Doohan Alpine	7	Alpine	Renault	4	+3.545 1'31.659	0.814	H	228.075
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