Mercedes’ George Russell surprised by McLaren's pace at Japanese GP practice

Mercedes driver George Russell said he was surprised by McLaren’s performance at the Japanese Grand Prix practice on Friday.

McLaren’s Oscar Piastri set the fastest time in practice. He ended the first day’s running 0.092 seconds ahead of Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli, who is the winner of the last race in China.

Russell, who is leading the championship after the first two races of the season, was third, 0.205 secs off Piastri's pace and 0.113 secs behind his team-mate.

"McLaren were pretty fast," the Briton said, "so a little bit of a surprise, to be honest. Still some improvements to do so a bit of work to do tonight."

Piastri’s teammate Lando Norris was fourth ahead of the Ferraris Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton, despite missing the action in the first half of the final session with a hydraulic leak and other things.

"I don't see why it wouldn't be representative," Russell said. "Lando has had a pretty disrupted day but Oscar's looked pretty on it from the first lap out of the box this morning so we will find out come qualifying.

"We have got some more to give and things weren't quite optimised on my side, especially with the energy management, so hopefully a little bit more to come tomorrow [Saturday]."

Russell's speed relative to his teammate Kimi was compromised by his driving style through Spoon corner, which was directly related to the battery level he had left at the end of the lap.

Deputy team principal Bradley Lord said: "The driving style through Spoon meant George was hitting the harvesting limit earlier in the lap than Kimi and that was costing him out of the final corner but that's something that will be looked at overnight."