Oscar Piastri was fastest in a damp second practice for the Japanese Grand Prix with a 34.725, the wet weather meant most drivers sat out the session with only five drivers setting a lap time.
Halfway through the session, Piastri went out on the intermediates followed by several drivers with the circuit in the difficult place between being too wet for dry tyres but not wet enough for inters. But his fastest time set on the soft was in the final moments of the session.
Charles Leclerc went third going three and a half seconds behind Hamilton, as he pushed the RB’s to fourth and fifth.
Rain started sporadically falling in the paddock with under an hour to go ahead of FP2 at 15:00 JST / 07:00 BST, but this intensified with fifteen minutes to go. As normal no cars did venture out onto track, Lewis Hamilton was first out before ending the session second half a second off.
As soon as Hamilton first headed out he was called back into the pits the next time by after Mercedes spotted what Hamilton’s race engineer Peter Bonnington called “rain indicators in sector one”, which stopped the Briton putting a time on the board.
As Hamilton was heading in, Daniel Ricciardo was out exploring, but with the rain Mercedes had seen getting even heavier, the RB driver was soon back in the pits after a sole tour on the mediums. Ricciardo had his running limited after missing FP1 as he missed a session for rookie Ayumu Iwasa.
Ricciardo was slowest in fifth seven seconds off his fellow Australian and nearly a second behind. His teammate Yuki Tsunoda was nearly a second faster after being first to put a time on the board before ended the session six seconds off.
Amongst those heading out were Alex Albon, the only Williams in the session as the team continued to repair his teammate Logan Sargeant car following his FP1 crash.
Valtteri Bottas hit the track as conditions continued to dry in the last 10 minutes, followed by others including the Haas pair of Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg, who tried out the soft tyres. Magnussen then reported that the circuit was still too wet for slicks.
Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz headed the order of cars that just completed sectors rather than full laps, ahead of Hulkenberg, Bottas, Esteban Ocon, Zhou, Albon and Magnussen. An ultimately meaningless lower order as this pack had toured around with the sole aim of being able to conduct a post-chequered-flag practice start on the damp grid.
Max Verstappen did not make an appearance during the session, nor did Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez, the Aston Martin pair of Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll, Alpine’s Pierre Gasly and the Mercedes of George Russell.
