Hamilton tops washed out 2nd practice in Japan

Hamilton before it rained

Lewis Hamilton put Mercedes top of the pile as severe rain led to an almost total washout in second practice at Suzuka on Friday afternoon, with only five drivers setting timed laps and six electing not to run at all.

Conditions were so bad that the start of FP2 was delayed indefinitely – and when the lights did eventually go green after 45 minutes, few drivers rushed to venture out.

Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen eventually broke the silence for an exploration lap, but it wasn't until Force India's Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon headed out that the first flying laps were posted, with Ocon getting the best of that inter-team duel with a 1m 49.518s, some 19 seconds off his FP1 best.

Only three other drivers posted times – among them was Hamilton, who moved Mercedes back to the front with a lap in the 1m 48s bracket – three quarters of a second faster than Ocon.

Williams' Felipe Massa and Lance Stroll completed the top five, the latter having saved a wild moment of aquaplaning that sent him perilously close to the barriers on the outside of Turn 1.

Six drivers, meanwhile, opted to sit out the session entirely – Red Bull duo Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen, Haas pair Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen, Mercedes' Valtteri Bottas and Toro Rosso's Pierre Gasly.

Carlos Sainz, meanwhile, managed to go out for two quick installation laps, Toro Rosso having repaired the extensive damage incurred in his heavy crash in FP1.

The rain is expected to last into Saturday, with the prospect of both FP3 and qualifying being held in wet or mixed conditions.

Lewis Hamilton
It's been an interesting day, the car is feeling much better than it was in Malaysia. I'm glad that we had the dry session for FP1. In FP2, there was a lot of rain, but it felt really important to go out and assess the track and see how the car was feeling as the car was not good in the wet in Malaysia. The car feels back to normal, so I'm ready to race. The fans are pretty special here – to be out there in the rain, waiting for us to go out through the whole of FP2. That's also another reason I wanted to go out and at least give them a little bit of a show. So hopefully at least they got to see something as not many cars went out.

Valtteri Bottas
We didn't really run in FP2, so it's a shame for the fans out there who were waiting to see us running. In practice one, the car did feel better than it did in Malaysia, but we still need to work on things to make the car quicker. As a starting point for the weekend, it definitely feels better than a week ago. My run with the Soft tyres was good, but with the SuperSoft, I didn't really gain any grip. So the main thing for me is to understand the SuperSoft performance. The long runs actually weren't too bad, and hopefully we'll see better weather tomorrow.

James Allison
The weather forecasts for today were actually pretty unpromising from quite a long way out. We weren't expecting much useful running at all in either of the sessions. So it was something of a blessing when we managed to get a largely dry FP1. We focused all our programme around trying to get as much race preparation as we could into that single programme. Although that may be an unusual session, it was actually quite a good one. Both cars getting their laps done, getting a feel for the car on high and low fuel and we were reasonably pleased with the initial balance and performance that the car is showing. Obviously after losing all of FP2 the rest of the weekend is still going to be something of a scramble, but at least we go into tomorrow knowing how we ought to set the car up for both qualifying and race.

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