Horrific Jack Doohan crash and trackside fires cause red flags in chaotic Japanese GP practice

Four red flags turned the second practice session for the Japanese Grand Prix into a chaotic affair.

The first incident involved a horrific smash for Alpine's Jack Doohan, followed by Fernando Alonso beaching his Aston Martin in a gravel trap before two separate grass fires followed.

It meant that 36 minutes were lost overall in a session which ordinarily would comprise long running over the second half after soft-tyre bursts earlier on.

The upshot was that McLaren again appear to be the team to beat, with Oscar Piastri spearheading a one-two, finishing with a leading time of 1:28.114s, 0.049s ahead of team-mate Lando Norris.

Just seven minutes into the session, and on his second push lap after missing out on FP1 due to reserve Ryo Hirakawa taking up his seat for a home outing, Doohan suffered a horrendous smash.

Approaching the high-speed Turn 1 at around 200mph, there appeared to be no driver error on Doohan's part as the car hurtled off the track, spinning twice through 360 degrees, over a gravel trap before careering into a barrier.

The considerable damage was predominantly to the left-hand side of the Alpine, whilst the barrier was also badly compromised, sparking an obvious red flag and repairs to the barrier that lasted 23 minutes.

The early indication is that Doohan was caught by a tailwind, in addition to which the car also bottomed out on approach into the corner.

Once the session restarted, with only 30 minutes remaining, it naturally led to a long queue in the pit lane to take to the track and make up for lost time, albeit with a mix of programmes as some drivers ventured out on the soft tyres, others on mediums, and a few on the hards.

But just four minutes later, and with some drivers who had been at the back of the queue only just on their outlaps, Alonso added to the red-flag chaos.

Approaching the fast Degner 2 right-hander at high speed, it was clear Alonso put the left-hand tyres on the grass on approach. That spat the two-time F1 champion into a gravel trap from which he was unable to escape.

After another eight-minute delay, leading to only 19 minutes of track time available, and unlike previously, all drivers headed out on soft tyres to engage in qualifying-sim runs.

With Russell's hard-tyre lap of 1:29.666s leading the way from much earlier in the session, it was no surprise that the first flier from Leclerc of 1:28.617s quickly usurped the Briton's time.

Several drivers took up the lead over the following minutes before the third red flag appeared for a grass fire out of the Turn 11 hairpin, seemingly caused by sparks from the underside of the cars catching the dry grass.

It was a carbon copy of what unfolded in the only practice session of last year's Chinese GP.

It resulted in another five-minute delay, leaving only nine minutes on the clock. When the session was stopped, Norris led the way with a lap of 1:28.163s.

Once running resumed again, Piastri managed to have the last word before a second grass fire took hold to bring the session to an end with two minutes remaining.

The duo were four-tenths of a second clear Racing Bulls' Isack Hadjar as the French-Algerian rookie showed an impressive turn of speed, followed by Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton.

Liam Lawson, on his return to Racing Bulls after his shock demotion from Red Bull last week, was a healthy fifth quickest.

As for the Red Bull duo of Max Verstappen and new team-mate Yuki Tsunoda, the latter promoted as Lawson's replacement, they were eighth and 18th, although in fairness, the chaos of the session played a compromising role.

Behind Lawson, Mercedes' George Russell was sixth quickest, followed by Charles Leclerc in his Ferrari, Verstappen, Alpine's Pierre Gasly and Carlos Sainz in his Williams.