McLarens rule as fires, crashes disrupt Suzuka practice

Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris topped the times for McLaren as four red flags, two caused by trackside grass fires, wreaked havoc with the second practice session for the Japanese Grand Prix on April 4.

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SUZUKA - Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris topped the times for McLaren as four red flags, two caused by trackside grass fires, wreaked havoc with the second practice session for the Japanese Grand Prix on April 4.

Australian Piastri, the winner of the last race in China, squeezed in a lap of 1min 28.114sec between the last two red flags to take the honours on a sunny but cool day at the Suzuka circuit.

Championship leader Norris was fastest in first practice and second in the later session, some four-tenths of a second ahead of Racing Bulls' French rookie Isack Hadjar.

The level of disruption in the second session meant several drivers were unable to get out for extended runs, leaving plenty for them and their teams to figure out in the final practice before qualifying on April 5.

"It's been a bit of an up-and-down day but there's definitely been positives in there. FP2 was a pretty stop-start session, which made it tricky to go through everything, but there were still some good learnings. A couple of tweaks and we'll be good to go," said Piastri.