Mercedes were not messing around in the first practice session as Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton pushed well clear of the chasing pack in Japan. Bottas pumped in a 1:28.731 during his qualifying simulation run with Hamilton trailing just behind by 0.076 seconds; the Mercedes W10 looked particularly mighty in the first sector. The nearest anyone else could get to the two Mercs was Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel, but even he was 0.989s adrift. Charles Leclerc, 1.181s slower,  and Max Verstappen, a further two tenths back, were P4 and P5 respectively. Saturday's schedule may by completely cancelled due to Typhoon Hagibis, but Friday's action got underway as normal with FP1 at a dry, cloudy...
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