F1 Live: 2025 Japanese Grand Prix first practice

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Russell uses his softs to lower the best time of this session to a 1’28.809. That is 1.2 seconds faster than the best time from this session last year, and there’s still half the session remaining.

Approaching the halfway point in the session, more drivers are heading out on the soft rubber so we should see some improvements soon.

Isack Hadjar appears to be immediately on it in the Racing Bulls, he’s the leading driver on the hard rubber, third at the moment on a 1’29.974. Lawson is three-tenths off that at the moment.

Verstappen: “It’s super-weird, man. The car is just flexing a lot.”

The track has gone a little quieter. However it’s taken Carlos Sainz Jnr two attempts to find the Williams pit box – they’re by the pit lane entrance this weekend and he’s driven past them.

Tsunoda posts a substantial improvement to go fifth, three-tenths of a second off Verstappen. But Russell finds another chunk and lowers the best to a 1’29.176.

Charles Leclerc put up Ferrari’s best time so far but then Lewis Hamilton pipped it by four-thousandths of a second. Both are three-tenths off Russell, all three on mediums.

Russell goes top with a 1’29.616, seven-hundredths up on Verstappen, still running the medium rubber.

Only Red Bull are running the softs. Liam Lawson improves his time on the hards in the Racing Bulls, going 1.3s off Verstappen and seven-tenths off his new team mate Isack Hadjar on the same rubber.

Tsunoda is a second off Verstappen so far, also on the soft rubber.

George Russell does a 1’29.406, almost matching Verstappen, albeit on the medium rubber rather than the softs.

Verstappen lowers his best to a 1’29.690 which is three-tenths of a second quicker than the best time from this session last year. The track has been resurfaced through the first sector and is clearly giving good grip.

We’ve got a mix of all three different compounds for these first runs. Max Verstappen opts for a set of softs and immediately hits the top of the times in his white Red Bull, well over a second ahead of Lewis Hamilton in his Ferrari.

First practice has begun at a bright and sunny Suzuka. The track fills up quickly with most drivers heading out.

The third change is at Alpine who have taken the curious decision to run Ryo Hirakawa for this session. The 30-year-old WEC champion and Le Mans 24 Hours winner is certainly qualified but what’s strange about this is Alpine have not benched the more experienced Pierre Gasly for this session but Jack Doohan, who is only in is fourth grand prix weekend and surely would have benefited more from the track time here.

We have three changes to the driver line-up for this session. The first two have attracted a lot of attention – Yuki Tsunoda has moved into the second Red Bull seat alongside Max Verstappen, while Liam Lawson has been sent back to Racing Bulls. It’ll be harder than usual to tell Red Bull’s two teams apart as well, as the senior team is running a special white and red livery in tribute to Honda this weekend.

The first practice session for the 2025 Japanese Grand Prix is coming up next.