Mercedes pulled clear of Scuderia Ferrari during the qualifying simulation programmes in Japan, with Lewis Hamilton finishing over eight-tenths of a second ahead of Sebastian Vettel, according to the times set during the first two practice sessions on Funday.
In the long run pace Mercedes still appears to have the upper hand but going by the times, things seem a lot closer on the soft compound, the middle tyre that Pirelli has brought to the Suzuka Circuit this weekend.
Each driver set a representative series of laps on the yellow-walled soft tyre, while Kimi Raikkonen set just one lap on the red-walled super soft compound. Below, you can see the list of the times from each driver from Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull.
Hamilton | Bottas | Vettel | Raikkonen | Ricciardo | Verstappen |
1:33.830 | 1:35.344 | 1:34.655 | 1:33.400 | 1:34.958 | 1:34.591 |
1:34.227 | 1:35.063 | 1:34.123 | 1:35.096 | 1:34.964 | |
1:35.050 | 1:35.331 | 1:35.532 | 1:35.101 | 1:35.313 | |
1:34.661 | 1:34.902 | 1:35.232 | 1:34.889 | 1:35.150 | |
1:34.430 | 1:34.669 | 1:34.896 | 1:35.357 | 1:35.332 | |
1:34.373 | 1:34.559 | 1:35.704 | 1:35.487 | 1:35.176 | |
1:34.190 | 1:35.334 | 1:35.379 | 1:35.032 | ||
1:35.240 | |||||
1:35.166 | |||||
1:35.553 | |||||
Average | Average | Average | Average | Average | Average |
1:34.394 | 1:34.978 | 1:35.144 | 1:33.400 | 1:35.181 | 1:35.080 |
Hamilton | Bottas | Vettel | Raikkonen | Ricciardo | Verstappen |
1:33.433 | 1:33.858 | 1:33.560 | 1:34.357 | 1:34.137 | 1:34.050 |
1:33.320 | 1:34.350 | 1:33.703 | 1:34.459 | 1:34.033 | 1:34.092 |
1:33.378 | 1:33.815 | 1:33.569 | 1:34.911 | 1:33.934 | 1:34.474 |
1:33.612 | 1:34.049 | 1:33.505 | 1:35.022 | 1:33.491 | 1:34.138 |
1:33.563 | 1:33.517 | 1:35.395 | 1:34.218 | 1:34.555 | |
1:33.584 | 1:35.689 | 1:33.788 | 1:34.831 | ||
1:35.159 | 1:33.619 | 1:34.226 | |||
1:35.185 | 1:34.174 | ||||
1:35.216 | |||||
1:35.654 | |||||
1:35.344 | |||||
1:35.663 | |||||
1:35.489 | |||||
Average | Average | Average | Average | Average | Average |
1:33.482 | 1:34.018 | 1:33.771 | 1:35.196 | 1:33.889 | 1:34.318 |
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