Hamilton hails Suzuka as best track ever

Despite the poor weather conditions hampering the teams in the afternoon session, the McLaren driver was thrilled to be racing at Suzuka.

"This is the best track I've ever driven," said Hamilton, who finished as fifth quickest in the second session after just five laps.

"It's something very special for me and I had a great time today, even though it was wet.

"We didn't do much running - we weren't supposed to be running this afternoon, but I couldn't help it: I just had to go out and have a little bit of fun!

"I've heard it's going to be dry for the race, I'm just looking forward to getting out there in the dry and seeing how fast you can push around here."

Team-mate Heikki Kovalainen went quickest in the morning session but decided not to run in the afternoon given the poor conditions.

"This morning the track was in a better condition than it was in the afternoon so we decided not to go out in second practice," he said. "We think tomorrow and Sunday will be dry so we didn't want to risk any damage to the car in these tricky conditions.

"We also felt that we wouldn't benefit at all from doing any additional running. In the morning, it was not so bad - it was drying out quite well so we could also use the Intermediate tyre, which worked well.

"I like this track, it has some very good corners and the grip level is very high. Obviously, the Japanese make very good Tarmac as this was also the case in Fuji!"