Formula One news

Heavy rain spoils second practice

The weather conditions at Suzuka made it nearly impossible to complete a lap at Suzuka in the first hour of Friday's second free practice session. At the end of the session the rain finally stopped and the after 90 minutes the fans saw Force India's Adrian Sutil at top of the timesheets.

The second free practice session started with heavy rain falling at the Suzuka circuit. Toro Rosso drivers Jaime Alguersuari and Sébastien Buemi both tried to complete a lap in the opening minutes but both soon found it was impossible to drive on the extremely wet track.

It would be over an hour until the rain would finally abate and drivers would leave the pits again on what was still a wet track surface. Fernando Alonso was the first man to complete a quick lap; the Spaniard then saw Sutil go even faster as the German ended the period on top.

The majority of the field ventured out in the final five minutes; the exceptions were championship-leading Brawn GP drivers Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello with McLaren's Heikki Kovalainen - who was fastest in the first session - also deciding to stay in the garage.


Suzuka's third and final practice session on Saturday will take place at 11am local time (BST +8 / GMT +9).

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