Lewis Hamilton looked comfortable once more as he topped the second practice session ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix. Teammate Valtteri Bottas finished P2 0.4s down on his teammate and Sebastian Vettel a distant third.
Ferrari sent both drivers out early on to get their practice session underway, rumoured to be running their engines turned down on Friday, a direct comparison between them and Mercedes might not be forthcoming until FP3 tomorrow.
Vettel set the initial pace before Mercedes eventually emerged from their garages, Hamilton going fastest of all on a 1:28.911s in his first run of the session.
Pierre Gasly’s weekend didn’t improve immediately. After being reprimanded for impeding Hamilton in FP1, Gasly was kept out of the car by a fuel issue which needed fixing. Not the start Toro Rosso was after on Honda’s home soil with a brand new upgraded engine.
The difference between the soft and supersoft compound doesn’t appear to be much this weekend, with teams leaning towards the more durable but equally fast soft tyre for strategy.
Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo improved on their first runs on the supersoft tyre but couldn’t knock Hamilton off the top spot.
Raikkonen and Verstappen also improved but couldn’t get close to the time he set originally on soft tyres.
“This track is awesome! I’m having the best day”, was Hamilton’s verdict early on in the session and it showed that he was enjoying himself.
Hamilton though was flying when he got onto the softer rubber and improved to a 1:28.217s to put half a second on everyone other than his teammate, Bottas just 0.4s down on his teammate instead.
Long runs started with just over half an hour to go, a big question this weekend will be whether to use the soft or supersoft tyres in Q2 to start on them in the race.
A one-stop is possible in the race but if teams opt for the supersoft tyres, they will suffer in the first stint of the race with more degradation than they would be used to in a race which may push teams to a two-stop strategy.
The delta between both compounds looks to be small, only Mercedes showing a marked improvement on the compound in FP2.
Vettel complained late on in the session of blistering on his rear tyres, a nasty band on his right rear as well as teammate Raikkonen, who was running on the softs, also suffered from blisters showing that Ferrari is struggling so far this weekend.
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