April 4, 2025
Chaotic practice session ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix
The stewards sure had their work cut out for them during an extremely chaotic practice session ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix – having to deal with a massive crash that needed a wall repaired, a beached Aston Martin – and fires!
By the time the dust had settled – and the fires extinguished, the practice session had seen four red flags that accounted for forty minutes of the session spent in the paddocks. That means that the cars were on track for just twenty minutes!
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In that limited time, the two papaya McLaren’s were again the fastest cars on track, with Oscar Piastri pipping teammate Lando Norris by the smallest of margins. So far this season, McLaren have put on a masterclass so seeing them ahead on the leaderboards again today isn’t much of a surprise.
This, however, was a day marred by a series of chaotic events.
Rookie Jack Doohan has had a rough start to his Formula One career, encapsulated by a chaotic practice session today, that saw the rookie slam hard into the wall after loosing control of his car, perhaps from catching an apex that lead to wind getting underneath him and taking him for a ride.
Doohan hit the wall incredibly hard, leaving his car a write-off that was confiscated by the FIA stewards for inspection before it gets handed back to the Alpine team. Most importantly though, was that Doohan was able to walk away from the crash.
The session had only just resumed when it was again red flagged, this time because Aston Martin’s Fernado Alonso – perhaps the most experienced driver on the current grid, had also crashed. Alonso caught the apex ahead of a turn and lost control, sending him sailing into the gravel trap, where he found himself beached.
A fire in the grass – presumably started when sparks off the underneath of one the cars landed on the grass, which is unusually dry as Japan has had a relatively mild winter compared to previous years. The fire needed to be extinguished by the race stewards which of course meant yet another red flag.
The cars then returned to the circuit where they were able to get a few laps in before the fourth and final red flag needed to issued. A second fire had broken out, much like the first one, and as there was just forty seconds left in the allotted time, the practice session instead came to an early end.
Perhaps the hardest hit by the constant red flagging of this practice session is the newly appoint Red Bull driver Yuki Tsunoda, who was surely looking forward to spending as much time in his new ride ahead of his home race this Sunday – his first for Red Bull since taking over for Liam Lawson.
Practice sessions are normally a time where teams gather information and all that they’ll have learned today is that Suzuka is a windy circuit, filled with challenges that can have chaotic results – then again, we already knew all that.
This had been a wild and chaotic session that most will want to forget. The good news is that light rain is expected ahead of the race on Sunday, which hopefully will keep the grass damp enough that we won’t have to issue yet another flag, to put out yet another fire!
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Failing that, perhaps we shall see the stewards spraying chemicals on the grass as was the case last year in Shanghai when a similar issue also saw the grass catch fire.
Tomorrow’s qualifying session could certainly be quite an interesting session that raises several questions – both for the teams and for the stewards.
