F1: World championship leader Lewis Hamilton set the fastest time in practice today to take the early initiative in what looks set to be a hard-fought Japanese Grand Prix.
Ferrari dominated the morning session as Kimi Raikkonen topped the timesheets followed by team-mate Felipe Massa, with the McLaren pair of Fernando Alonso and Hamilton over half a second off the pace.
But Hamilton responded in the afternoon session by setting fastest times in all three sectors around the 4.563 kilometre Fuji Speedway track as he clocked a time of one minute 18.734 seconds, nearly four tenths of a second faster than his Ferrari rival's morning mark.
Team-mate Alonso posted a time of 1min 18.948secs to end the 90-minute session two tenths of a second behind his championship rival, while Massa claimed third but was nearly three-quarters of a second off the pace.
Jarno Trulli secured a surprise fourth place in his Toyota, while Raikkonen found the going tougher as he finished fifth, nearly a second back, as all the teams again completed a healthy compliment of laps on a circuit they will race on for the first time on Sunday.