'Sorry, man': Ricciardo move badly backfires; F1 grinds to halt over ...

McLaren’s Oscar Piastri went fastest on Friday in a second practice for the Japanese Grand Prix that was badly affected by rain at Suzuka.

Australian Piastri, who finished third at last year’s race, clocked 1min 34.725sec in on-off showers to finish 0.501sec clear of Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton.

Triple world champion Max Verstappen and team-mate Sergio Perez did not come out for second practice.

Verstappen led Perez for a Red Bull one-two in first practice. They were among the drivers who stayed in the garage for the second session as the teams tried to preserve their tyres in the tricky conditions.

RB’s Ricciardo sat out the day’s first session as Japanese driver Ayumu Iwasa took his seat for the team.

The timing of the move backfired on the team, however, with the weather coming in and stopping him from any meaningful running in FP2.

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Ricciardo said it was still a productive, yet frustrating, day.

“Being settled at the pit wall during the first session, I went through a lot of data alongside watching the onboards and hearing the comments of the drivers, so this was definitely productive and there’s always some learning,” he said.

“Then in FP2, when I jumped into the car, it was a bit frustrating to complete only a few laps due to the track conditions. The weather was in the middle and this meant it wasn’t well enough for an inters running, nor a proper run on the dry.

“Looking at the morning, Yuki looked like he got up to speed quickly and was in the top 10 pretty much all session. It felt like we were probably at the front of the midfield.

“You never know what happens in quali, but it looked like we’re where we expected to be.”

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was third fastest, 4.035sec behind Piastri. Japanese home favourite Yuki Tsunoda was fourth, followed by RB team-mate Daniel Ricciardo and McLaren’s Lando Norris in sixth.

Hamilton was first to emerge over 10 minutes in but it was not long before he returned to the garage.

Tsunoda and Ricciardo were the only two drivers to record a timed lap until Piastri jumped to the top of the leaderboard and sparked a flurry of activity in the dying minutes.

It was a different story in the day’s first session, where Verstappen finished fastest in dry conditions.

Verstappen won the first two grands prix of the season but the Dutchman retired from a race for the first time in two years in Melbourne after a brake issue.

Normal service resumed at Suzuka in a first session that was red-flagged for around 10 minutes after Williams driver Logan Sargeant crashed.

Sargeant came skidding off the track at a corner and spun across the gravel before slamming into a barrier midway through the session.

The American walked away unhurt and his car was carried off by a crane. Williams boss James Vowles said the damage to Sargeant’s car was “extensive”. “He struggled to see where his position was on the track, so it fundamentally looks like he didn’t quite realise where he was,” said Vowles.

Sargeant did not take part in the second session.