Max Verstappen dominated before Alpine’s Pierre Gasly brought Friday practice to an early end at the Japanese Grand Prix with a crash.

Verstappen ended the day 0.320 seconds quicker than Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and looked close to unbeatable.

McLaren’s Lando Norris was third, while Lewis Hamilton said he had a “bad day”.

The seven-time champion’s Mercedes team-mate George Russell managed the fifth fastest time, but Hamilton was down in 14th place and 0.501secs slower.

Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso was sixth fastest, ahead of Williams’ Alex Albon and the McLaren of Oscar Piastri. Red Bull’s Sergio Perez was ninth, a second off Verstappen, and Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas 10th.

Degner bites Gasly

Gasly had an accident that several other drivers had been threatening to have all day.

Degner Two is arguably the most difficult corner at the most demanding track on the calendar. It is preceded by the Degner One, a much faster bend, and drivers have to brake for the second corner straight after flicking through the first, the task made more difficult by a compression in the middle of the first.

It is a place where accidents are common, and Hamilton, Williams’ Logan Sargeant and Alfa Romeo’s Zhou Guanyu all ran wide over the kerb there during the day but managed to stay in control.

Gasly’s accident was a different incident in character. Locking his inside front wheel on the way in, he slid wide and on to the kerb, and once into the gravel a crash was almost inevitable as the run-off area is so short.

Verstappen looking impressive

Overall, Verstappen looked imperious. He made a flying start to the first session, initially lapping well over a second clear of the field, and two seconds faster than Perez.

The Dutchman, who looks likely to win a third drivers’ title at the next race in Qatar, appeared set on delivering a message, five days after Red Bull were defeated in Singapore – the first time they had lost a race all season.

Amid speculation in the paddock that their performance at Marina Bay could have been influenced by a technical directive clamping down on flexible floors, Verstappen was in imposing form from the moment he took to the track.

“It felt really good,” Verstappen said. “From lap one, the car was enjoyable to drive again and it seems like we had a strong day on short runs, long runs.

“There is a lot of degradation on this track so it will be quite tough on tyres in the race, but so far we have a good start to the weekend.”

Perez was losing the vast majority of his time to Verstappen in the first sector, which features the famous Esses, a left-right-left-right sequence of corners which all drivers highlight as the most technical and enjoyable part of the circuit.

A true order has not yet formed, however, and the picture was muddied by the fact that only three of the drivers in the top 10 respected the minimum out-lap time of one minute 54 seconds defined by officials.

Verstappen was a massive 50 seconds over the limit, which will not be possible in qualifying when it is policed, and there is a potential advantage in cooling tyres with a slow out lap on a track which is particularly prone to overheat the rubber.

As usual, Verstappen’s advantage over a longer run was even more pronounced than over a single lap – he was about a second a lap faster on average than anyone else on the race-simulation runs late in the second session.

Behind him, Leclerc was next fastest, comfortably ahead of Sainz, with both running Ferrari’s new floor in the second session.

Leclerc was 0.6secs slower than Verstappen through the first sector but made up time over the rest of the lap.

He was encouraged by the development parts, in the week after team-mate Sainz won in Singapore to be the first driver not in a Red Bull to triumph at a race this season.

“It did what we expected it to do,” Leclerc said, “which gave us a little bit of consistency, which was good to see.

“I don’t think there was a lot of performance in it but let’s wait and see.

“We keep learning about this car. The last two and three races we learned a lot and now it’s about putting it all together, which we did in Singapore and we need to do it here, too. Red Bull seem to be extremely quick here this weekend. I don’t think we are so far off.”

And he said that after struggling in recent races to adapt to the understeer Ferrari had dialled into the car to settle down its instability, he had made progress in Japan.

“The last two or three races I have struggled a little with the the balance,” Leclerc said. “Today I changed a bit my driving style and went with the car a little bit in my direction, too and the feeling is better, but it is only one day and we need to do another step tomorrow.”

At Mercedes, Russell said he had had “a half-reasonable day”.

“Red Bull are back to their normal ways,” he said, “which I don’t think is a major surprise. We are not so far from P2, so it will be a good fight with Ferrari and Lando.

“There seems to be a huge amount of tyre degradation. Suzuka is one of the best tracks in the world to drive but this year it feels as if the Tarmac has really broken up and the cars are sliding on the surface. So it is giving a bit of a strange feeling to all the drivers and that is contributing to the tyre degradation.”

Hamilton said: “A real struggle out there. A long way off. Two seconds in the first session and over a second in the second, just working a way at trying to fix the car, fix the balance.

“It’s just figuring out what is wrong. We definitely won’t be winning this weekend but if I can move up a little bit further up the order so I can at least [act as] back up; George did not such a bad lap. A tough one.”