F1 Japanese GP live commentary and updates: FP1
Follow along from updates from first practice at the Japanese Grand Prix
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It's a wrap from us as we commit this morning's session to the data banks. We'll be back later for more action from FP2, where we can expect to see Fernando Alonso back in action...
Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin Racing
Photo by: Lars Baron / Getty Images
THAT'S IT FOR FP1
A rather uneventful session comes to a close as George Russell heads back out on the soft tyres he used earlier, with a view to doing a start simulation. As he leaves the pits, Isack Hadjar is pushing on down the front straight and has to use the slow-moving Mercedes as his apex into Turn 1. Naturally, he grumbles on the radio.
Having done a nine-lap run on hards at the tail end of the session, Russell doesn't improve on the 1m31.666s he did earlier. Antonelli is second fastest, 0.026s in arrears.
The McLarens are third and fourth quickest, followed by the two Ferraris. Less than a tenth of a second separates the teammates.
If the gap between Russell in P1 and Hamilton in P6 is a modest 0.374s, thereafter there's a gulf to Max Verstappen's Red Bull, which is 0.791s off Russell. The increments between the remainder of the top 10 are narrower, though, and Lindblad in P10 is 'just' 0.999s away from P1.
And in a fillip for Lance Stroll fans, he managed to get within four seconds of the Mercedes. There's progress!
George Russell fans in the stands.
Photo by: Sam Bloxham / LAT Images via Getty Images
The McLarens are now the second-fastest cars on track albeit nearly two tenths off in the case of fourth-placed Oscar Piastri.
Oscar Piastri, McLaren
Photo by: Toshifumi Kitamura / AFP via Getty Images
One piece of debris not garlanding the circuit is Crawford's Aston Martin. It's currently up on the stands in the garage, while Crawford himself is chatting with the denizens of the 'prat perch'. Just 11 laps completed for him in this session.
Oh dear, Albon and Perez performing an accidental recreation of Senna and Prost in 1989 at the chicane. Albon was going to pass but Perez didn't see it coming and turned in. Debris now garlands the circuit.
In other close-your-DMs news, some shenanigans on track between Colapinto and Lawson as the Alpine seems to be blocking the Racing Bulls while they run slowly to allow Carlos Sainz through on a push lap. Lawson grumbles over the radio but keeps it relatively clean...
5.273s now separates the fastest car, Russell's Mercedes, from the slowest, Lance Stroll's Aston Martin.
The green cars have been a low-profile presence thus far. Stroll has completed 15 laps, Crawford 11, while the frontrunners bear down on 20 or more.
A brief pit visit and Russell is back out on the hards he used earlier. Antonelli also makes a brief stop but he continues on softs.
Lewis Hamilton now third fastest in his first run on the soft tyres.
Everyone on the track at the moment is on soft-compound Pirellis, apart from Norris on the mediums and Crawford on hards.
While all that excitement has been under way, Russell has gone fastest again with a 1m31.666s. He still has time to have a whinge about traffic though. "Oh, it would be Perez," he harrumphs – close your DMs now, George...
Alex Albon, front right corner of his Williams adorned with red flow-viz paint, has just had a brief off into the gravel at the exit of Degner 2, tapping the barrier in the process – it's quite close to the track because of the topography of the landscape here. There's quite a steep drop on the other side...
Meanwhile Gabriel Bortoleto has just brought hsi Audi back into the garage after a 10-lap run on the hards, 12th fastest so far on 1m33.037s.
Leclerc is now done with hards and is out on softs. Ditto Verstappen, HUlkenberg, Hadjar, Lindblad and Lawson of the top 10 so far.
Russell gets a brake snatch now and runs wide at the Spoon. Antonelli goes fastest with a 1m31.692s – 0.063s faster, an appropriate margin given George's race number...
Some chat between Russell and his engineer Marcus Dudley about wind – no, not a reaction to bad sushi, but the ambient conditions. Dudley says the car's pitot is registering 20km/h on the straight. Our data is suggesting an SE direction with a speed of 3.1m/s, having been zero just ahead of the cars going out.
F1 TV camera pick up Norris running a little wide at the Spoon bend. The Mercs have left the garage again, this time on soft tyres. Russell puts in a 1m31.755s, which is modest for that compound.
Leclerc also back out on track, but on hard-compound tyres so the teams' run plans are very much diverging
Antonelli clocks a 1m32.032s, having locked up and gone a little wide at the hairpin. I used to do that all the time on the Namco arcade classic Pole Position...
Russell lowers his laptime to 1m32.273s before calling it quits after a seven-lap run; Charles Leclerc clocks a lap 0.013s faster. Take that! Leclerc also parks, with eight laps under his Ferrari's proverbial belt.
Kimi Antonelli currently third quickest of all, but he's also back in the garage. Nine laps on the board for the other Mercedes.
Just Bearman, Albon, Ocon, Colapinto, Bortoleto, Stroll on track now – ah, Norris is leaving the pitlane too.
All the drivers are now out or have been on track, but Lando Norris completed a single untimed lap before returning to the garage. Also completing just a handful of laps before returning to the pits are Franco Colapinto - and the two Aston Martins, natch. Jak Crawford in for Fernando Alonso in FP1.
Jak Crawford, Aston Martin F1 Team, arrives in the paddock.
Photo by: Clive Mason / Getty Images
Oscar Piastri was briefly fastest with a 1m32.812s, but George Russell has just gone round in 1m32.429s – 0.383s faster, and on hard tyres while the McLaren is on mediums.
Early days yet, of course – we're nearly six seconds off last year's pole time.
Isack Hadjar on the radio already complaining that his car is pulling to one side under braking. In the 1980s my parents had a Fiat Uno which used to do that.
Hadjar's Red Bull is bedecked with flow-viz paint on its rear wing. The team has arrived in Japan with an update package – budget cap be damned! – including reprofiled sidepods with a more aggressive undercut. It's not quite the full Audi, though – it's not about your vorsrung durch teknik, y'know...
AND WE'RE OFF
It's installation lap o'clock and off we go. Ambient temperature is a crisp 17C, track temperature 37C, so it's going to be a job to get heat into the hard-compound Pirellis several drivers are using .
GOOD MORNING/AFTERNOON/EVENING
Welcome to live coverage of FP1 at Suzuka from our operations centre in the Lord Heseltine Theatre.
It's a sunny spring day in rural Japan, if a little crisp, and there's lots to unpack already. Let's catch up with the news so far, including the bizarre scene of Max Verstappen booting The Guardian's F1 correspondent out of his pre-weekend press conference. Grauniad readers will veritably be choking on their mung bean soup, no?
Will this weekend continue to be a tapestry of Mercedes dominance? It's likely, since this is a low-ish energy circuit more akin to Albert Park. But there's a glimmer of hope for future races: Oscar Piastri reckons there's "nothing magical" about Mercedes' dominance...
By: Stuart Codling
