Second Practice for the 2022 Formula 1 Japanese Grand Prix was officially under way at the Seuzuka circuit, with the clock ticking down from an hour and 30 minutes in Suzuka. Why? That was because an extra 30 minutes had been added to this session for Pirelli to test next season’s tyres. However, the tyres Pirelli have brought to Japan are dry ones, and therefore no testing could be done in the wet conditions.
Though for some reason, a decision was then made for the session to remain at 90 minutes, which led to some confusion in the paddock.
Nicholas Latifi was the first driver to brave the difficult conditions, and he immediately offered some feedback to his Williams team over radio: “So far it’s ok”. Latifi then got some company on track, with Scuderia Ferrari Spanish driver Carlos Sainz, Daniel Ricciardo and Alex Albon joining the action.
Unsurprisingly, it was Carlos who set the early pace, as the Ferrari driver recorded a 1:49.615 to comfortably best the others. Mick Schumacher’s car was not be ready in time for him to participate in Practice Two, following his crash in this morning’s first session.
Carlos Sainz was on the radio to Ferrari assessing the conditions. The Spaniard said he wanted to stay on full wet tyres at this stage of FP2: “Clearly extreme (wets),” Carlos Sainz said – “We could go inter but too much risk for practice.” We then saw a replay of him running into the gravel, suggesting wets were definitely the order of the day at that moment, as George Russell and Lando Norris also came out on track. Lewis Hamilton was among the next group of drivers to trickle out on track: he was joined by the AlphaTauri cars, but we were still yet to see a Red Bull.
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Lewis went fastest with his first push lap, bettering Carlos Sainz by just over a tenth. Meanwhile, his team-mate George Russell was the first to return to the track on intermediates, midway through the second free practice session for the Japanese Grand Prix.
George Russell went 2.5s clear of Lewis Hamilton with his first lap on the inters. That saw Hamilton come into the pits for a set of his own, and surely the rest of the field followed.
Charles Leclerc did finally join the action, and he was immediately in trouble as he went off track at Turn 11. The Monegasque driver only just managed to stop his Ferrari before the barrier, and that was a narrow escape! Before that, we also saw Yuki Tsunoda run into the gravel at Turn 9.
The Red Bull cars also joined the action, and Max Verstappen immediately went to the top of the timesheet. Lewis Hamilton then went faster, but Verstappen responded on his second flying lap to put 0.4s between himself and the Brit. However, the Mercedes cars appeared to be showing some decent pace in these conditions: George Russell did a 1:41.935 to take top spot from team-mate Lewis Hamilton, who was a couple of tenths back. Max Verstappen was almost a full second back from Russell in third, and was complaining about his front tyres overheating.
Charles Leclerc returned to the track after Ferrari dealt with an issue on his car: “They’ve spent the last 10 minutes or so making adjustments to his brakes,” Ted Kravitz reported from the pit lane. Aside from Mick Schumacher, his five completed laps were the least by any driver at this stage.
With an hour gone, that would normally be the end of the session, but the extra Pirelli 30 minutes was coming in quite handy after all in the drying conditions.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, who is down in 10th, was not enjoying life in his F1-75 car during FP2 at the Suzuka circuit. After the attempts by the Maranello team to fix some sort of brake issue, he reported over team radio that the car still didn’t feel right: “Feeling is still really bad for some reason,” he says. “I will try to make it better.”
The Maranello team decided to call Charles back to the pits to further investigate the issue. Hopefully the work tonight will fix it for tomorrow. While the Monegasque driver did not have the ideal FP2, things went better for Carlos Sainz, who was the driver with more laps this session, as he attempted to complete Ferrari’s testing programme for Friday at Suzuka.
Several drivers were still pounding around the circuit as we headed into the closing minutes – although the lap times were well down and it appeared they were focusing on longer runs. That may be very worthwhile indeed, with a good chance of these sort of conditions for race day on Sunday.
It may be slightly unrepresentative due to the conditions and the fact it was practice, but a one-two on a Friday is always welcomed and George Russell and Lewis Hamilton have comprehensively out-paced their rivals. Mercedes will certainly be encouraged, particularly looking to a potentially wet race.
Carlos Sainz ended FP2 in sixth place, while Charles Leclerc finished outside the top ten as he didn‘t feel comfortable with the car, having balance tyre issues.
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