Practice called off at Fuji
After four minutes of running following a half-hour delay due to low-lying cloud, the FIA officials issued two further five-minute delays before calling off the session at 11.53.
The problem was that the cloud, in the shadow of the famous Mount Fuji, made it dangerous for the medical helicopter to fly.
"Going straight into qualifying like this is not ideal," Williams' Nico Rosberg told the German broadcaster Premiere. "You don't know where the rivers of water are and so on, but it is the same for everyone."
McLaren CEO Martin Whitmarsh suggested that his team's weatherman thinks the conditions are unlikely to be very different for qualifying.
"Yesterday we were pretty strong, so we are not all that concerned," he said. "Who is competitive now will stay competitive."