Red Bull on top after Sargeant crashes in first Japanese GP practice

Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez topped first practice at the Japanese Grand Prix after a crash for Logan Sargeant lost teams more than 10 minutes of track time halfway through the session. Sargeant, who is driving the freshly repaired Williams chassis that teammate Alex Albon crashed two weeks ago in Australia, spun off the track through the long left-handed Dunlop Curve linking the esses and the Degner corners. The American Formula 1 sophomore understeered wide and dipped his right-hand tires onto the grass. Refusing to lift, his car spun off the road, briefly took to the air over the stones and whacked into the barriers. Sargeant walked away from the wreckage unscathed. Damage was focused on the front of the car, which was craned back to pit lane for repair work. Williams is still without a spare chassis this weekend, with the arrival date for its third tub now pushed back to the Miami Grand Prix owing to repairs required following Albon’s Melbourne crash. The session was suspended for around 11 minutes, with some soft tire running resuming once the pit lane reopened with 19 minutes remaining. Verstappen seized the moment to put himself at the top of the order with a set of softs, setting a best time of 1m30.056s. Teammate Perez was close behind, his best lap just 0.181s off the pace. Carlos Sainz, winner of the preceding Australian Grand Prix, ended 0.213s adrift. All three were comfortably faster than last year’s best Friday times, speaking to the significantly cooler weather conditions of the race’s new April date, with the air temperature just 61 degrees F and the track only a little warmer, at 73 degrees F. The hour-long session resultantly saw all three tire compounds in use, with Sunday’s race expected to be less taxing on the rubber than in previous races, changing the strategic picture. Mercedes teammate George Russell and Lewis Hamilton were closely matched in fourth and fifth — Hamilton with a new power unit after his mid-race failure in Australia — but both more than 0.25s slower than Sainz and almost half a second off Verstappen’s leading time, while Charles Leclerc pipped Fernando Alonso for sixth and seventh. McLaren teammates Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris sandwiched RB’s Yuki Tsunoda to complete the top 10 ahead of Esteban Ocon and Alex Albon. Nico Hulkenberg was shown a black-and-white bad sportsmanship flag for crossing the white line at pit exit early in the session, which he completed in 13th for Haas ahead of Valtteri Bottas. Lance Stroll suffered an early failure of his aero rake device testing Aston Martin’s new bodywork, forcing him back to pit lane for repairs. He ended the session 15th. Red Bull and Honda junior Ayumu Iwasa commandeered Daniel Ricciardo’s RB for one of the team’s mandatory rookie practice outings, completing an all-Japanese line-up for the Italian team. The 22-year-old Super Formula regular was 16th quickest, beating Pierre Gasly, Zhou Guanyu, Kevin Magnussen and the crashed-out Sargeant in the finishing order.