Max Verstappen topped second practice at the Japanese Grand Prix with a reduced margin ahead of Charles Leclerc after a clumsy Pierre Gasly crash ended practice early.
Gasly was following teammate Esteban Ocon through the second Degner corner where he understeered off track and through the gravel, where he dragged his left-front wheel along the barriers and snapped his suspension. With less than two minutes left on the clock, the session ended with the flying of red flag to collect the stricken Alpine.
The shortened session was of no consequence to Verstappen, who ended Friday on top with an ultimate time of 1m30.688s, heading Leclerc and the rest of the field by 0.32s.
Leclerc’s deficit was relatively heartening for Ferrari given the SF23 wasn’t expected to look competitive at a high-downforce, high-speed circuit like Suzuka. Leclerc shipped half a second to Verstappen through the first sector, especially Turn 2 and Turn 7, but won back around 0.2s in the middle split, which is encouraging as it includes the hairpin and the high-speed Spoon curve. The two cars were closely matched in the final split, which is dictated by top speed down the back straight and performance through the chicane.
Lando Norris was third for McLaren and with a similar performance profile, losing most of his 0.464s deficit in the first sector but being more competitive through the remainder of the lap.
Carlos Sainz put the sister Ferrari fourth and 0.549s off the pace and almost 0.1s quicker than George Russell in fifth.
Mercedes struggled significantly through the esses in the first sector, though the W14 was somewhat more competitive in the middle split. Lewis Hamilton was far worse off, however, particularly in the first two sectors, leaving him more than a second off Verstappen’s pace and down in 14th, though his deficit could in part be explained by a wide moment at the second Degner curve, where he suspected he caused damage to his floor by running over the curbs.
Fernando Alonso put Aston Martin 0.8s off the pace but only 0.06s ahead of Williams driver Alex Albon — who said he “for sure” damaged the floor running over the curbs at Degner — and another 0.1s ahead of Oscar Piastri is in the second McLaren.
Sergio Perez’s struggles continued, with the Mexican putting the second Red Bull Racing machine ninth on the time sheet and 1.022s off Verstappen’s pace.
Perez was using an old-specification floor during the first practice session, when his deficit was 1.4s. Though the new part closed that gap by almost a third, it wasn’t nearly enough to bring him level with the rampant Verstappen.
Valtteri Bottas completed the top 10 for Alfa Romeo ahead of Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll.
Esteban Ocon was 12th ahead of Nico Hulkenberg, Hamilton and AlphaTauri rookie Liam Lawson. Zhou Guanyu ended the session 16th and at the head of a tight group of cars comprising Kevin Magnussen, Yuki Tsunoda and Gasly down to 19th.
American rookie Logan Sargeant was anchored to the bottom of the time sheet in 20th, although the Williams driver was fastest in the final sector, where top speed is decisive.
