Perez wary of potentially chaotic final practice

Sergio Perez has predicted "a very busy" final practice session for the Japanese Grand Prix for which he feels Red Bull is in a "very similar boat" to its rivals.

First practice at Suzuka was initially disrupted by a red flag following Logan Sargeant's latest crash in his Williams, whilst FP2 was hit by rain, leading to precious little running. Despite sets of Pirelli's intermediate tyres available, the teams opted to play it safe.

Perez was one of six drivers, alongside team-mate Max Verstappen, who opted not to even venture out of the garage for the second session, albeit after a solid performance in FP1, ending 0.181s behind the three-time F1 champion.

Although unable to test set-up changes made for FP2 on his RB20 which has been upgraded for this weekend, the Mexican said: "It was a good session overall. I was pleased with the car, I think we've got it in a nice window.

"We obviously did some changes for FP2, which, unfortunately, we didn't get a reading.

"I think we did the most we could in FP1, I think we are in a very similar boat to a lot of people around us, so I think we wait for tomorrow to have a better reading."

No race pace knowledge yet

As a result of running being so heavily impacted by the damp conditions in second practice, Perez has also yet to complete a long-run.

It means both he and the rest of rest of the grid will be catching up on their programmes in third practice on Saturday ahead of qualifying.

"Long-run pace we haven't done anything so far," added Perez. 'We are going to be doing some high-fuel runs and then go into quali prep, so it's going to be a very busy FP3. It should be an interesting morning.

"We are confident for this weekend. I think the car is working well. We have a good base from the morning [practice], we just have to try and dial up a bit of balance and hopefully we can be in a nice position."