Few will be as frustrated as Daniel Ricciardo, who sat out the opening hour of practice as RB instead opted to field Ayumu Iwasa for one of the team’s two mandatory rookie outings.
Conditions for Free Practice 2 were so unrepresentative that the laps Ricciardo did get meant next to nothing, leaving him something of a mountain to climb come Saturday morning.
Rain was always thought to be a threat for Friday’s running, but earlier in the day, it looked as though it might stay away.
Ahead of Free Practice 1, all teams present their cars to the media in pit lane, with a handful chosen to have a representative talk through any developments they may have.
That saw Haas, Red Bull Racing, and RB explain their go-faster parts, conversations which took place in the sunshine about an hour ahead of cars on track.
But the weather turned and by the end of opening practice, it was decidedly cold, with conditions not improving for the balance of the day.
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One concession was that the wind that blasted the circuit on Thursday had disappeared, though that also meant, along with the cool conditions, the weather tended to hang around.
As a result, Free Practice 2 was essentially a non-event.
Between the two on-track sessions, there was another FIA Press Conference, this time featuring four team bosses Ayao Komatsu, James Vowles, Bruno Famin, and Toto Wolff (who arrived late).
Those sessions are typically either flat or fiery, rarely anything in between, but they’re useful sources of information.
It was there that Williams boss Vowles revealed that his team won’t have its spare chassis until the Miami Grand Prix – his team’s effort has had to go into repairing the car Alex Albon damaged in Australia.
Clearly, that’s not an ideal situation, especially when the team had hoped to have the spare car ready for China, but it is at least no more exposed than it has been to this point in the season.
And it’s not alone; Alpine doesn’t have a spare car either, Famin confirmed.
Speaking of doing without, the power unit that failed Lewis Hamilton in Australia is kaput. Mercedes boss Toto Wolff confirmed a ‘hardware’ issue in the unit means it cannot be used again.
Will that lead to a penalty in future rounds? That remains to be seen. Whatever the case, the seven-time champ is one power unit down on his allocation.
Elsewhere, Oscar Piastri heads into Saturday confident McLaren is somewhere in the mix.
McLaren has been the third-best car, and Oscar said in the lead-up that the team has effectively solidified that position in the pecking order in the three races thus far; it’s a front-running team and can snag a strong result but probably needs a little help to get it.
That’s what happened in Australia – Max Verstappen had an engine failure and Sergio Perez a grid penalty – which opened the door for Lando Norris to snag a better-than-expected third place.
But otherwise Red Bull Racing and Ferrari are ahead on track, and that looks to remain the case in Suzuka, even if that order was difficult to discern given the frustrating way the day played out on track.
Saturday brings with it another day and another opportunity for things to change. They certainly will for Oscar; it’s his 23rd birthday.
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