Lewis Hamilton made it a perfect Friday at the Suzuki International Racing Course as he was fastest in Free Practice 2.
The championship leader, who had been fastest in the morning session, was almost half a second faster than Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport team-mate Valtteri Bottas.
Hamilton’s championship challenger Sebastian Vettel finished third fastest with Max Verstappen fourth.
Kimi Räikkönen was fifth quickest with the second Aston Martin Red Bull Racing of Daniel Ricciardo sixth.
Esteban Ocon was best of the rest in seventh for Racing Point Force India F1 Team with Romain Grosjean in the Haas F1 Team in eighth.
The Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 Team of Marcus Ericsson was ninth with Brendon Hartley in the Red Bull Toro Rosso Honda rounding out the top ten.
Sergio Pérez just missed out on the top ten by less than a hundredth of a second as he finished eleventh quickest.
Renault Sport Formula One Team need a strong showing if they are to stay in fourth place in the constructors championship but Nico Hülkenberg and Carlos Sainz Jr. were only twelfth and fourteenth fastest in this session.
Splitting the Renault’s was Pierre Gasly who only set 10 laps in the session due to sitting out the majority of it due to a fuel issue.
Charles Leclerc was fifteenth fastest ahead of Kevin Magnussen in the second Haas car.
The bottom four was occupied by both McLaren F1 Team and Williams Martini Racing.
Fernando Alonso winning that mini-league as he aims to continue his qualifying domination of tema-mate Stoffel Vandoorne.
The Belgian was slowest in the session with Sergey Sirtokin and Lance Stroll separating the two McLaren’s.
Mercedes continue their fine start to the Japanese Grand Prix weekend with a second one-two of the day putting Scuderia Ferrari on the back foot for the rest of the weekend.
[table id=3491 /]
