Oscar Piastri topped a very chaotic second practice session in Japan which featured no less than four red flags.

A huge shunt for Jack Doohan saw the Alpine driver thankfully walk away unhurt, in an FP2 session where grass fires proved a headache, with a lack of running leaving great uncertainty over the true pecking order.

McLaren one-two at end of barmy FP2

A flood of cars exited the pit lane to a green light, no time to waste at Suzuka as the second hour of practice got underway.

But time was being wasted for Carlos Sainz, who was quickly wheeled back into the garage with his Williams “bouncing like crazy through Turn 13”, the way his head was gyrating in the cockpit confirming this was true.

It was over to his replacement at Ferrari Lewis Hamilton then to set a 1:29.9 as an early benchmark to chase.

And just as Norris was looking to beat Hamilton’s time set on hard tyres with a set of mediums, his efforts were halted by yellow and then red flags, Jack Doohan having suffered a big shunt in his Alpine down at the first corner.

Doohan thankfully confirmed “all okay” over the radio as he gingerly exited the A524 wreckage, which more closely resembled a pile of rubble than a Formula 1 car at this point.

He lost the car at the point of full attack going into Turn 1 in a frightening high-speed incident, slamming into the barriers.

This puts Doohan now majorly on the back foot having sat out FP1 for Ryo Hirakawa to get his rookie practice session in as his home crowd watched on, but an unhurt Doohan was the big relief and a further triumph for safety advancements in F1, as the clear-up job began and a lengthy red flag period played out.

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An estimated session restart came through which would mean a return to green at exactly the halfway point, leaving 30 minutes to go.

That estimation became confirmation as a queue quickly formed at the end of the pit lane, almost half of the session having been lost.

With the likes of Mercedes’ George Russell on hard tyres, Red Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda on softs and Norris on mediums, we had a mix of run plans out there.

Norris was up first, but feeling he was impeded by Haas’ Esteban Ocon from the S’s, put on the squeeze to hammer home his disapproval.

And with that, the red flags returned, Fernando Alonso having spun his Aston Martin off into the gravel between the Degner corners and beaching it.

“Bit of bouncing, something strange on the entry,” Alonso reasoned on the radio before exiting his stricken Aston Martin. Dipping his front left wheel on the grass on entry appeared to be the culprit.

With 19 minutes remaining, FP2 resumed and the queue dispersed out of the pit lane again, Russell even taking to the grass in a bid to get ahead of Verstappen. He was unsuccessful.

Soft Pirelli tyres were the order of the day at this stage.

A 1:28.6 from Leclerc was quickly bettered, by half a tenth, by Russell, before Hamilton and then Isack Hadjar took over at the top on a 1:28.518.

After the McLarens put their best foot forward, Norris was top after a whopping 1:28.163 effort, putting him over three-tenths ahead of Hadjar. Verstappen was P8 only and “understeering everywhere”.

And then, guess what? Yes, another red flag. This time, the grass had caught fire at Turn 7!

Right, it was time to try this again. The track was back to green with seven minutes left on the clock.

And Piastri used that opportunity to snatch P1 from his team-mate, a 1:28.114 seeing him head a McLaren one-two by 0.049s as this chaotic session came to an end.

There was though just enough time for Hamilton and Lance Stroll to be noted for potentially failing to follow race director’s instructions, and the grass to catch fire again to see the last few seconds of FP2 finish under red flag conditions.

Full FP2 timesheet to follow…

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