Piastri Tops the Timesheets in Second Free Practice with Four Red Flags

The first practice session of the race weekend may have been calm, but the second was anything but, as four red flags disrupted the session. The first was waved after Jack Doohan went off at the first corner and slammed into the barriers. Luckily he was all okay, but it will be a disappointment as the team look at what could’ve caused the accident. With 30 minutes to go, the practice resumed only to have Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin get beached in the gravel after having dipped a wheel into the grass, which resulted in the second red flag. The cars got back on the track with 19 minutes left, where there was some time before an unusual reason for a red flag. Like China last year, the sparks from the cars seemed to have set fire to the grass alongside the track. The practice was stopped while the marshals extinguished the fire, only to have the session end 9 minutes later on a red flag due to the same reason. Throughout the disruptions, none of the drivers could get too many laps in, but by the end Oscar Piastri managed to go quickest, ahead of his teammate Lando Norris, and Racing Bull’s rookie Isack Hadjar pushed the car to go a surprising third fastest.

Below are the full results of the second practice session in Japan.