Huff sets the pace in first practice at Suzuka

On a track declared wet from morning drizzle, the Briton assumed his place at the top of the timing screens early on and was never unseated, finishing up with a best time of 58.657s.

Huff's team-mate Alain Menu was best of the rest, falling just 0.040s short of Huff's time, while SUNRED's Tiago Monteiro managed to prevent a Chevy 1-2-3 by going third-fastest in his SEAT, leaving championship leader Yvan Muller to settle for fourth.

Robert Dahlgren rebounded from a trip through the grass at Turn 8 to go fifth-quickest in the Volvo C30, with 2008 world champion Gabriele Tarquini sixth. Bamboo Engineering's Darryl O'Young was best of the independent drivers, finishing up just ahead of Tom Coronel's ROAL BMW in seventh.

Despite the slippery conditions the session passed mostly without incident. Rally driver Toshi Arai, who is competing in a fourth works Chevy this weekend, prompted the only brief stoppage of the morning when he left the track at Turn 3 with 10 minutes remaining.

Pos  Driver              Team/Car          Time       Gap
 1.  Rob Huff            Chevrolet         58.657s
 2.  Alain Menu          Chevrolet         58.697s  + 0.040s
 3.  Tiago Monteiro      SUNRED SEAT       58.918s  + 0.261s
 4.  Yvan Muller         Chevrolet         59.007s  + 0.350s
 5.  Robert Dahlgren     Polestar Volvo    59.284s  + 0.627s
 6.  Gabriele Tarquini   SUNRED SEAT       59.322s  + 0.665s
 7.  Darryl O'Young      Bamboo Chevrolet  59.354s  + 0.697s
 8.  Tom Coronel         ROAL BMW          59.416s  + 0.759s
 9.  Kristian Poulsen    Engstler BMW      59.426s  + 0.769s
10.  Mehdi Bennani       Proteam BMW       59.507s  + 0.850s
11.  Colin Turkington    Wiechers BMW      59.639s  + 0.982s
12.  Javier Villa        Proteam BMW       59.685s  + 1.028s
13.  Michel Nykjaer      SUNRED SEAT       59.689s  + 1.032s
14.  Yukinori Taniguchi  Bamboo Chevrolet  59.774s  + 1.117s
15.  Norbert Michelisz   Zengo BMW         59.874s  + 1.217s
16.  Aleksei Dudukalo    SUNRED SEAT       59.885s  + 1.228s
17.  Fredy Barth         SUNRED SEAT       59.911s  + 1.254s
18.  Toshihiro Arai      Chevrolet         59.939s  + 1.282s
19.  Franz Engstler      Engstler BMW    1m00.057s  + 1.400s
20.  Pepe Oriola         SUNRED SEAT     1m00.123s  + 1.466s
21.  Hiroki Yoshimoto    SUNRED SEAT     1m00.580s  + 1.923s
22.  Charles Ng          Engstler BMW    1m00.600s  + 1.943s
23.  Masaki Kano         KK BMW          1m00.793s  + 2.136s
24.  Fabio Fabiani       Proteam BMW     1m03.460s  + 4.803s