Norris leads McLaren 1-2 as grass fires interrupt practice

Lando Norris closed out Japanese Grand Prix practice with the fastest time, just 0.026 seconds ahead of McLaren Formula 1 team-mate Oscar Piastri, as the session faced two red flags due to grass fires.

The championship leader aborted two hot laps during his late-session qualifying simulations on soft tyres due to minor wide moments on the exit of the second Degner corner, but rallied on his third attempt to set a 1m27.965s.

Although Norris did not beat his best first sector time on that lap, he found further improvement in the final two sectors to snatch the best lap from Piastri.

This could not be beaten in the late-session flurry of hot laps of soft tyres; Norris’s timesheet-topper was followed by a grass fire – the second of the session – on the grass alongside 130R.

Sauber’s Gabriel Bortoleto had run marginally wide here on the entry to the flat-out left-hander, and just about saved his car from spinning off into the opposite wall. Moments later, the grass here caught fire to bring the session to a close.

Despite overnight attempts to quell any further grass fires, the first of the two FP3 red flags was brought out after just six minutes of running, as the island of grass between Turn 12 and the chicane used for motorbike racing at the Suzuka course was ignited.

George Russell, Mercedes

Photo by: Peter Fox – Getty Images

This led to a short seven-minute delay, leaving Max Verstappen’s first timed run on hards perched at the top of the order. But his time was quickly brushed aside by a series of soft-tyre laps on the restart, as Norris shuffled ahead on his first play for a lap; in turn, the Briton was deposed by the two Ferraris.

Piastri then reclaimed top spot, bringing the times into the 1m28s ballpark, before George Russell eclipsed him at the head of the leaderboard. The Australian bounced back to sink below the 1m27s bracket, which Russell found himself almost a tenth shy of entering – but this was simply the prelude to Norris’s later move to the top.

Russell shook out in third ahead of Charles Leclerc, while Verstappen got a late upgrade to fifth after his initial soft tyre run – he had been just a tenth ahead of new team-mate Yuki Tsunoda before the Dutchman was offered a second attempt. He found the car “undriveable” at certain corners, after being offered a chance of a change in diff settings by engineer Gianpiero Lambiase.

Lewis Hamilton was sixth ahead of Alex Albon, who sat ahead of Pierre Gasly, Tsunoda – who didn’t get a chance to close in on Verstappen late into the session – and Isack Hadjar. Carlos Sainz was 11th, after surviving an excursion at Turn 6 due to a snap of oversteer.

Both Verstappen and Piastri were pinged by the stewards having appeared to not follow the race director’s instructions governing practice starts on the pitlane exit.