Bottas tops Japan FP2 in final session before Sunday

Valtteri Bottas stormed to the head of the timesheets in second practice for the Japanese Grand Prix on Friday afternoon at Suzuka, putting himself in the frame for pole position should the rescheduled qualifying session on Sunday not go ahead.

After leading Mercedes to a one-two finish in first practice at Suzuka, Bottas set the pace once again in FP2 as he edged out teammate Lewis Hamilton by one-tenth of a second.

Bottas set a fastest lap time of 1m27.785s as teams opted to run revised programmes due to the incoming super typhoon that could see the grid be formed by the results from FP2.

With Saturday's running already cancelled due to the approaching Typhoon Hagibis, the FIA stewards confirmed they would be tweaking the sporting regulations so that the FP2 results could set the grid if wet weather results in Sunday's qualifying session not taking place.

Mercedes and Red Bull both stuck to a more traditional practice programme in FP2, completing their qualifying simulation runs in the middle of the session before turning attention to race pace. Bottas recovered from an early spin to claim P1 overall, taking provisional pole in the process.

Ferrari left it late to stretch the legs of the SF90 car, but the tactic backfired as neither Charles Leclerc nor Sebastian Vettel were able to get close to the lead runners, finishing fourth and fifth respectively for Ferrari.

Max Verstappen was able to get within three-tenths of a second of Bottas' benchmark for Red Bull, with teammate Alexander Albon ending the session sixth-fastest.

Carlos Sainz led the midfield for McLaren yet again in seventh place ahead of Racing Point's Sergio Perez, while Pierre Gasly made an impressive return to the Toro Rosso cockpit after missing FP1 as he finished the session ninth. Lando Norris completed the top 10 in the sister McLaren car.

With Saturday cancelled, the next planned on-track running at Suzuka is qualifying on Sunday, starting at 10am local time (0200 BST).