The Red Bull driver followed the red flag-enforced hiatus, produced by Logan Sargeant’s crash, with a hot lap on soft tyres that eventually landed on a 1m30.056s to throw down the gauntlet for the rest of the weekend.
In anticipation of any inclement weather at Suzuka later on in the weekend, it appeared that many of the teams wished to prioritise the longer runs during FP1 in the event that FP2 faces any rainfall.
This stunted the period of faster runs on the soft tyre, as the opening half-hour of running was dedicated to the hard and medium compounds amid the early installation laps.
Lando Norris led the way after the opening 15 minutes, having traded top-line times with Melbourne winner Carlos Sainz, but the Briton then had his time matched to the thousandth by Fernando Alonso.
Verstappen then raised the bar with a 1m31.463s, ominously on the hard tyre, before a lull in proceedings among the majority of the field as the teams switched from the cast of medium and hard tyres for a soft run during the second half of the session.
This prompted Lewis Hamilton to vault to the top on softs, almost a second faster than his 2021 title rival’s time.
Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes F1 W15
Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images
The session was red-flagged moments after when Logan Sargeant put his Williams into the wall: the American washed out through the Dunlop Curve and spun over the gravel. This did little to stop him from hitting the wall with the front of his car, which rotated it rearwards.
Williams will need to assess Sargeant’s car for damage, which was the car Albon crashed in FP1 at the Australian Grand Prix and required chassis repairs. The Grove team is still awaiting completion of a spare tub, which it does not expect to have until Miami.
When the 10-minute lay-off had ended once the Williams was swept away, Verstappen punched in a 1m30.056s to return to the top, followed by team-mate Sergio Perez who was 0.181s off in that phase of the session.
This remained the set order at the top of the timesheets, as the two Red Bulls switched back onto the hard tyres to collect more running around the Japanese figure-of-eight circuit.
Sainz was third fastest, just over two tenths off of Verstappen’s best, as the Ferraris were split by the two Mercedes cars; George Russell was a scant 0.013s clear of Lewis Hamilton, who in turn beat Charles Leclerc by just a smidgen.
Fernando Alonso was seventh, running the older-spec bodywork on his Aston Martin AMR24 as Lance Stroll trialled the slightly revised sidepods on his machinery. However, their back-to-back testing hit a snag as an aero rake broke on Stroll’s car early on in the session.
McLaren’s Oscar Piastri collected the eighth-fastest time over home hero Yuki Tsunoda, while Lando Norris completed the top 10 over Esteban Ocon and Alex Albon.
Red Bull junior Ayumu Iwasa made his first FP1 appearance for RB at his home circuit, claiming the 16th-fastest time as he slowly grew into the session. This was 0.9s shy of Tsunoda’s fastest lap in an error-free showing from the Formula 2 race winner.