Mercedes dominates important second training session in Japan

The Mercedes duo, who would make the Silver Arrows' renewed constructors' title perfect with a double victory, showed the Reds around Sebastian Vettel the limits on Friday afternoon in Suzuka.

The Finn Bottas was fastest in 1:27,785 minutes ahead of his British teammate Hamilton (+0,100 minutes). Third was Max Verstappen (Netherlands/+0,281), who made a good impression in the Red Bull at Honda's home race. Only behind them were the Ferraris of Charles Leclerc (Monaco/+0,356) and Vettel (Germany/+0,591 seconds).

The second training started under special conditions. After qualifying was postponed to Sunday morning due to the approaching super typhoon “Hagibis”. (03.00:XNUMX a.m. CEST), the session served as a kind of hybrid unit of training and qualifying.

Cancellation of qualifying possible Because: If safety concerns or storm damage make hunting for times impossible on Sunday morning, completely canceling qualifying is an option. In this case, the result of the second training session would decide the starting grid for the race on Sunday (07.10:XNUMX a.m. CEST) - to Ferrari's disadvantage. The FIA, the world automobile association, ruled out rescheduling the race to Monday.

Local hero Naoki Yamamoto sat in a Formula 1 car for the first time in the first training session. The 31-year-old took over the Toro Rosso from Frenchman Pierre Gasly and finished training in 17th place. Yamamoto's efforts are mainly thanks to car manufacturer Honda, which also supplies Toro Rosso with engines.

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Mercedes dominates important second training session in Japan

Valtteri Bottas and world champion Lewis Hamilton dominated the important second training session for the Japanese Grand Prix and achieved a possibly groundbreaking partial success in the duel with Ferrari.

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