Limited running in a rain-affected FP2 session at Suzuka paved the way for a late flurry of slick tyre running in the final few minutes, with McLaren’s Oscar Piastri fastest.
Piastri set a 1:34.725 laptime on the soft tyre, 0.501s of Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton.
Charles Leclerc was third on the soft tyre, four seconds adrift as he elected not to push on his sole representative lap.
The two RBs were fourth and fifth, setting times on intermediate rubber with home hero Yuki Tsunoda bettering Daniel Ricciardo.
Only nine runners posted a time on the leaderboard, with Lando Norris, Carlos Sainz, Esteban Ocon and Kevin Magnussen completing the list of drivers clocked by the stopwatch.
Review the results of FP2 below.
[motorsport_result id=’159453′]
