Russell continues Mercedes dominance in opening Japanese GP practice

George Russell beat Mercedes teammate Kimi Antonelli to top spot in the first practice session for the Japanese Grand Prix.

Russell and Mercedes controlled the session, starting the hour with the hard tire before switching to the soft for the weekend’s first tentative performance runs. Antonelli, though, was initially fastest on the red-marked qualifying rubber, having been cleaner with his first attempt. Russell, on the other hand, snatched his brake heading into Spoon, costing him time and top spot to his teammate.

Russell reversed the order easily enough, however, with a follow-up lap despite complaining about a slow-moving Sergio Perez, setting the benchmark at 1m31.666s.

Antonelli’s first soft lap stood to the end of the session to put the Italian second in the order, just 0.026s behind his teammate.

McLaren had a slow start to the session, with Lando Norris restricted to his garage after a single installation lap for the first 20 minutes of the hour. It put the Briton on an offset program that didn’t have him set his fastest soft-tire time until late in the session, which put him third and 0.132s off the pace, the closest either McLaren driver has been near the top of a practice session since Oscar Piastri finished FP2 in Melbourne with the quickest time. Piastri had held third ahead of his teammate but ended the session fourth, 0.199s off the pace.

Ferrari had an uneventful run to fourth and fifth with Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton, the scarlet cars 0.289s and 0.374s off the pace respectively.

Red Bull Racing brought the biggest upgrade package of the weekend to Suzuka, but despite the new parts and despite back-to-back testing front wings, Max Verstappen was only seventh fastest and 0.791s off the pace.

Liam Lawson was unhappy to be blocked by Franco Colapinto during the hour but managed the eighth-best time, 0.863s off the pace, for Racing Bulls.

Esteban Ocon was ninth for Haas, 0.935s adrift, while Arvid Lindblad rounded out the top 10 and 0.999s off the pace.

Audi teammates Gabriel Bortoleto were 11th and 12th ahead of Isack Hadjar in the second Red Bull Racing car and Oliver Bearman in the second Haas.

Alpine combination Pierre Gasly and Franco Colapinto followed ahead of Williams driver Carlos Sainz.

Alex Albon’s sister Williams car ended the session in the garage after crashing with Sergio Perez late in the hour. Albon attempted to dive down the Cadillac’s inside into the chicane, but the Mexican didn’t spot him coming, and they made clumsy contact on the apex. Albon was spun around, and debris was scattered on the road, though no stoppage was required to clear the area. Perez finished 19th ahead of Cadillac teammate Valtteri Bottas, 2.555s and 2.824s off the pace respectively.

Aston Martin finished at the foot of the time sheet. Lance Stroll completed a respectable 22 laps but was 3.628s off the pace in his upgraded AMR26, while reserve driver Jak Crawford piloted Fernando Alonso’s car to 22nd, 4.696s adrift.

American Crawford, who was the Formula 2 runner-up in 2025, completed only 11 laps before his car was put on jacks in the garage, having lost some bodywork on track.

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