#JapaneseGP FP2: @McLarenF1’s @OscarPiastri tops damp session. #F1 #JapanGP

Piastri Japanese GP FP2 – McLaren’s Oscar Piastri was quickest on the time-sheets in a damp session at the Japanese GP with a lack of running in Suzuka.

The Australian posted the benchmark of a 1:34.725 on the C3 red side-walled Soft tyre and was 0.501 seconds clear of Mercedes’ Sir Lewis Hamilton as Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc a further 4.035 adrift in third.

The RB pairing of Yuki Tsunoda and Daniel Ricciardo followed in fourth and fifth respectively on the inters.

Rain started falling in the paddock with under an hour to go ahead of Free Practice 2’s 3pm local time slot, but this intensified with 15 minutes to go.

Thus, there was no shock when no cars emerged on track as FP2 went green, with few drivers even in their cockpits at this phase.

After 12 minutes, Hamilton hit the Suzuka Circuit on the mediums, declaring the track “pretty dry”, but was called back in the next time by after Mercedes spotted what the Briton’s race engineer Peter Bonnington called “rain indicators” in the first sector, which stopped the seven-time world champion from putting a time on the board.

As Hamilton was returning, Ricciardo was out on track, but with the rain Mercedes had seen getting heavier, the Australian was soon back into the RB garage after a sole run on the mediums.

A ten-minute lull of action commenced before Piastri took his MCL38 out on the intermediates – his car sending spray upwards from the circuit surface, which had not been happening during the earlier runs of Hamilton and Ricciardo.

Piastri over the radio said, “it’s not that wet”, but nonetheless was brought back in rapidly, just Sauber’s Zhou Guanyu and Valtteri Bottas, RB’s Tsunoda and Ricciardo were already using the inters for the first time as FP2’s second half began.

Only RB’s duo remained out longer than a single out/in tour, with Tsunoda taking his intermediates to the initial P1 benchmark of a 1:42.304 and Ricciardo slotting behind his Japanese team-mate 4.1 seconds off.

After each driver had completed their cool down laps, the RB pairing pushed again and Tsunoda improved with a 1:40.946, with Ricciardo’s second effort bringing him 0.9 seconds off his team-mate new leading effort.

With just a third of the hour-long session left the RB’s returned to the garages, but still a few others were looking to emerge on circuit – the consensus being that the conditions were really too dry for the intermediates, but too wet for the slicks.

Zhou and Bottas did re-appear on the green-branded intermediates, but again only for a single out/in tour aboard their C44 racers.

Another 10-minute lull then occurred, before Zhou re-emerged on the inters, yet again for a single lap.

With ten minutes remaining on the clock, Williams Racing’s Alexander Albon and Haas pairing Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg came out on the slicks, but only the latter attempted a flyer.

Yet the German aborted that so it was left to Piastri, who had also come out late on the slick rubber, to knock the RB’s off at the head of the time-sheets.

With purple sector two and three’s set of his initial hot-lap of Free Practice 2, Piastri did indeed jump ahead posting a 1:39.105.

Although there was a minute remaining by this phase, several drivers had also tested the softs – including Hamilton, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and the Sauber duo, whilst the RB pairing re-emerged to do final intermediate tours.

Shortly after Piastri on his third flying lap produced the session-topping benchmark of a 1:34.725, Hamilton’s sole hot-lap on the slicks came 0.501 second off the McLaren driver, whilst Leclerc posted the third-best effort, which was 4.035 seconds adrift of the Australian.

The rest emerged with only enough time to topple the Visa Cash App RB entries in fourth and fifth with Tsunoda in-front of Ricciardo, McLaren’s Lando Norris and Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz taking sixth and seventh respectively.

Hulkenberg followed on the classification with a 1:55.179 as Bottas took ninth ahead of Alpine’s Esteban Ocon as Zhou, Albon and Magnussen completed a meaningless time-sheet as most lapped the Suzuka International Racing Course with the aim of being able to run a practice-start on the damp grid after the chequered flag was waved.

You can see the full Formula 1 MSC Cruises Japanese Grand Prix 2024 Free Practice 2 Results Classification at the link: https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2024/races/1232/japan/practice-2.html

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